


Alike (A Wrestling Story)

by 90sgrungeismyaddiction



Series: Spaz [1]
Category: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Middle School, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Teenagers, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/90sgrungeismyaddiction/pseuds/90sgrungeismyaddiction
Summary: Lauren is used to the "supportive" adults in her life shutting down her aspirations but maybe she might have a chance to pursue what she wants finally. Lauren has been in love with wrestling for a long time and now she can fully pursue her dreams because her uncle who introduced her to wrestling has agreed to take her to South Africa to wrestle. Though the AWA has no women's division and doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon Lauren is determined to pave her own way. But as she's trying to forge her path to stardom she catches the eye of Johnny Polazzio and he doesn't seem to want to leave it. She's also left missing her friends back home, wanting to share these amazing memories with them. But one question still remains to Lauren.Will her new life as a wrestler be an absolute success or a complete failure?
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley & Original Female Character(s), Dolph Ziggler & Original Female Character(s), Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Spaz [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727089





	1. Forewarning

***Please Read***

This story includes cursing, mentions of depression and suicide, anxiety, violence, a non-sexual relationship between two minors, mentions of child abuse, mentions of molestation, mentions of pornography and sexual acts, seizures, characters who are apart of the LGBTQ+ community, features many explicit dreams, mentions rape, and features characters with many mental health problems.

If you are not ok with reading material with this kind of content in it than this book may not be for you. If you are then you can continue to read on but I advise you to remember that this book can get very graphic. Again if you are not ok with reading this type of material than you can exit the book and try and find something more light-hearted. This book however is not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys and welcome to Alike. I originally posted this story on Wattpad but it didn't get much attraction so I'm putting it on here. Enjoy more chapters are coming.


	2. Characters

Name: Lauren Tommie Thompson  
Age: 13  
Birthday: April 20, 1990  
Sign: Aries/Taurus  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Height: 5 ft. 0 in.  
Weight: 100 pounds  
Eye Color: Hazel  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Johnny Jean Palazzio  
Age: 15  
Birthday: March 6, 1988  
Sign: Pisces  
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa  
Height: 5 ft. 5 in.  
Weight: 162 pounds  
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Blonde

Name: Jonathan Dean Moxley  
Age: 13  
Birthday: December 7, 1989  
Sign: Sagittarius  
Hometown: Cincinnati/Cleveland, Ohio  
Height: 5 ft. 3 in.  
Weight: 132 pounds  
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Light Brown

Name: Michael Gregory Mizanin  
Age: 13  
Birthday: October 8, 1989  
Sign: Libra  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Height: 5 ft. 2 in.  
Weight: 115 pounds  
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Light Brown

Name: Nicholas Dolph Nemeth  
Age: 12  
Birthday: July 27, 1990  
Sign: Leo  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Height: 5 ft. 1 in.  
Weight: 124 pounds  
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Blonde

Name: Laura Ann Thompson  
Age: 35  
Birthday: August 6, 1967  
Sign: Leo  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Hazel  
Hair Color: Brown

Name: Brandon Raymond Thompson  
Age: 36  
Birthday: March 10, 1967  
Sign: Pisces  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Lori Jenna Thompson  
Age: 8  
Birthday: May 9, 1995  
Sign: Taurus  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Hazel  
Hair Color: Brown

Name: Tyler Joshua Thompson  
Age: 9  
Birthday: December 12, 1993  
Sign: Sagittarius  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Shaun Koen  
Age: 33  
Birthday: December 3, 1970  
Sign: Sagittarius  
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa  
Height: 6 ft. 6 in.  
Weight: 234 pounds  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: PJ Justin Black  
Age: 15  
Birthday: March 3, 1988  
Sign: Pisces  
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa  
Height: 5 ft. 4 in.  
Weight: 146 pounds  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Adam Bridle  
Age: 15  
Birthday: May 7, 1988  
Sign: Taurus  
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa  
Height: 5 ft. 5 in.  
Weight: 155 pounds  
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Isaiah Josiah Nolan  
Age: 15  
Birthday: July 8, 1988  
Sign: Cancer  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Green  
Hair Color: Brown

Name: James Fredrick Thompson  
Age: 33  
Birthday: May 16, 1970  
Sign: Taurus  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Grace Rihanna Sachen  
Age: 13  
Birthday: March 7, 1990  
Sign: Pisces  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio  
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Black

Name: Kelcie Raven McDonald  
Age: 13  
Birthday: November 11, 1989  
Sign: Scorpio  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio   
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Brown

Name: Maria Reagan Bahlman  
Age: 13  
Birthday: December 26, 1989  
Sign: Capricorn  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio   
Eye Color: Brown  
Hair Color: Brown

Name: Angelina Marie Konan  
Age: 13  
Birthday: August 6, 1990  
Sign: Leo  
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio   
Eye Color: Blue  
Hair Color: Blonde


	3. Things

So before we get to the first chapter there are some things to know. I mean it's not all that important but I just think it's fun to include this because lore is fun. So these are just some things that the characters have that they constantly wear. In the story I'll mention them but I won't include pictures of them because that would be super repetitive. So these are the things:

Lauren's Glasses:

Lauren's Tooth Gap:

Lauren's Braces:

Lauren's Freckles:

Lauren's Dimples (only central cheek)

Lauren's Piercings (on both ears)

Lauren's Toenails:

Lauren's Brothers Ashes Necklace:

Lauren, Grace, Maria, Kelcie, and Angelina's Friendship Ring:

Jon, Mike, and Dolph's Friendship Ring:

Lauren's Promise Ring:

Isaiah's Promise Ring:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a real chapter but this was a fail. Something went wrong with the pictures and I can't fix it.


	4. one-attention whore

**Pajamas:**

**Outfit:**

****

_**4:00 am** _   
_**friday, may 23, 2003** _   
_**lauren's pov** _   
_**———** _

**M** y alarm clock screeched, urging me to wake up. And today I actually felt motivated to wake up on time. I stopped it's insufferable noise and sat up in my bed. I let out a big yawn and stretched my limbs, hearing a couple of cracks that irked my brain. I looked at the windows across from my bed and squinted at the bright, blinding light that seeped through the blinds. After taking the longest thirty seconds possible I finally slipped on my black slides and walked a slow seven steps to my bathroom.

Now I know what your thinking. You said 'my bathroom' instead of 'the bathroom'. Which would now make you think I'm some kind of rich teenager living in a big ass mansion with parents who don't give a shit about me. But I would say you're wrong. I'd say I'm an upper-middle-class teenager living in a comfortable suburban house with parents who care about me every second of the day.

People always assume that I'm something bigger than I am. When I come to school wearing Gucci shirts everyone just believes I'm rich and tries to mooch off of me in hopes of getting something when it's the complete opposite. I don't have the money to buy these shirts and my parents don't have the money to buy this stuff. So now the question your asking is how do I get this expensive stuff.

And it's pretty sad to hear how.

I believe my mother is the kindest person in the world. She's so sweet and would give the clothes off of her back to anyone if they needed it. But as you know kindness can be taken for granted. And you end up using that person's kindness for selfish reasons. And although my mother knows she's being used she still does what she does because it'd hurt her more if she didn't.

My mom was a teen mom, she got pregnant when she was 16. My grandmother believed that since my mom got herself into this mess she had to fix it herself. She should know because she had experienced this first-hand with her mother. Her boyfriend at the time, Richard, was not by any means a deadbeat but he was such a momma's boy that when his mom told him that he shouldn't involve himself with her he went and listened. My mom was fine with that she had a certain way she wanted to raise her kids.

She would want her kids to have every good quality imaginable, she didn't want any kids who acted too wild since she had to grow up with siblings like that. She wanted them to be honest and trust her, she wanted them to be nice and respectful and to never try to be anything their not. She wanted them to be confident but not super egotistical. She wanted them to have an honest and good life.

My mom set such high expectations that when she was faced with reality she was disappointed. My mother's first kid was a boy named Khalil Leonte Thompson. He was the sun to her sky, the moon to her stars. She raised him well and he was a good kid until he got into high school and got caught in the wrong crowd and got into drug dealing.

This devastated my mother and no matter how much she tried Khalil still ran back to the streets. One day Khalil and mom got into a big argument that ending in Khalil telling my mom that he no longer gave a fuck about her and that she couldn't stop his hustle. He left my mom in tears and regret and ended up getting caught by the police. Since he was a minor jail was out of the question. But when the police found out that not only had he been possessing large amounts of drugs but also selling it they sent him to a juvenile home. Khalil was only 16 when this happened.

My mother cried so much, whining 'they took my baby' all the time. I was nine at the time and always wondered why she cried so much, I wanted to know what was making her so sad. Me and Khalil we're close and when he left things felt off. One day I asked my mom where he was and she started crying. I felt bad for asking and comforted her and telling her that I would always be by her side.

Looking back now that feels like a lie.

My mother was hit with another dosage of pain from my older sister Leila. One word that could describe Leila was fast. And I'm not talking in the speed sort of way. More like she grew up too fast. From an early age, Leila always acted grown. She enjoyed being near older people and treated all the younger people like they were beneath her. Leila would always pray at night to grow up quickly saying she hated being a child and that being an adult would be more fun.

And in a way, Leila's wish came true.

Leila had many talents. She could play the piano, she could dance, but most importantly she could sing and that's the thing she always loved to do. Leila boasted that she would one day be an amazing singer and form a group with her friends and be the next Destiny's Child. She would say after that she would be the Beyonce of the group. And she got what she wanted. In 1998, when Leila was only 13 years old her girl group consisting of three of her best friends, Starr, Gina, and Danielle called Obsession got discovered. Multiple videos of them performing went viral and many people were interested in the teen girl group.

It started out small with a couple of articles here and there being written about the group. My sister was ecstatic when she found out about this. She bragged for weeks on end about it. Because she found her 15 minutes of fame it was all my sister could think about, she focused everything on churning out new music that could get discovered. My mom helped her of course because this was something important to Leila and she couldn't say no to her. Leila was now spending every minute of every day working on her music. This, however, affected Leila's grades.

Leila went from pulling straight A's to pushing straight C's. Now a C isn't the worst grade but for the school, being average isn't that good. We don't go to a private school but it's not much of a public school. Basically, it's the only school in our district so there obligated to having a dual private and public teaching spectrum. When my mom got a call to meet with the principal she knew something was wrong. She was told that Leila was on the verge of being kicked out of Advanced English because she had pulled a C that quarter.

My mother was furious and knew that if she was going to have Leila keep up her grades she would have to bring her away from her strides at the music industry. But at the same time, she didn't want to because she knew how much Leila loved making music and how happy it made her. My mom ultimately let her do what she wanted to do. But told her that if she didn't raise her grade she'd make her quit the whole music thing. My sister took these words to heart even though my mom didn't really mean it.

My mom's a big softie. She wouldn't hurt a fly...Unless she was provoked by it. My mom is a kind of 'three strikes and you're out' gal. She'll warn you a couple of times but then when she's done with the warnings she knows she has to deal out the real punishments.

After that things got really bad. Leila kept her grades steady and was making music that would almost always pop up on some random article. Then one day a record executive named Daddy G called my mom up and asked to sign Obsession. You see two record executives had previously asked to sign Obsession but my mom insistently said no sighting that Leila was too young to 'be out here dancing and singing for these older men'. So, of course, Daddy G was no different.

Daddy G, however, couldn't take a hint. He tried every tactic in the book to get Momma to let him sign the group even bringing up that he would pay $30,000 just to sign them but again Momma said no. Before Daddy G could attempt to try to coax her into giving off her daughter she hung up the phone.

My sister had overheard the conversation and was angry at my mom for denying her the opportunity to get signed by a record label. Momma and Leila argued back and forth over this as I watched on wondering what was happening. Momma ended the conversation saying that Leila just needed to wait until she was 18 to even consider signing with a record label. However later that evening Leila took matters into her own hands.

Leila called up Daddy G and expressed to him how much she wanted to be signed to his label, Baby G Records. They talked for a while and Leila was eventually able to get him to agree to watch a performance with the group. The stage had now been set.

Leila had told everyone that her group was gonna perform for a record executive. Everyone didn't believe her at first until she called Daddy G to confirm it. She had told all her group members that they needed to be in tip-top shape because this was very serious and important to her. Everyone was so excited. Word got around really quick in school and so many kids and parents wanted to come that they had to ask the owner of a local bar if they could use their lounge area for the performance.

Everyone was buzzing about this but one key person didn't know about the performance. My mom. She soon found out when Gina's mom, Tanisha, was talking to her about the performance. My mother was shocked that Leila would go and do something of that magnitude behind her back. She wanted to cancel the whole thing right then and there but she couldn't for two reasons. The performance was tomorrow so it would be a waste of time for everyone to be so hyped up for the performance and then hear it was just canceled. The other reason was that this made Leila so happy and she didn't want to take this away from Leila.

She let her go through with the performance and because she did something this big behind her back she gave her a whopping. The performance went well and Daddy G liked it. He said that more than ever he wanted to sign Obsession and that he could make them stars. He said he wanted to sign them a deal for $50,000. Gina, Starr, Danielle, and Leila were so excited and we're really happy that they impressed Daddy G that much. But the signing was up to their parents and there wasn't much else for them to do than beg. So that's exactly what they did.

After a while, Tanisha, Gina's mom, Corey, Starr's mom, and Sandra, Danielle's mom, had caved in and agreed to sign the contract which left my mom. My mom was hard-set on not signing the contract but with seeing that she was the odd-woman-out she felt pressured into doing so and she too caved in. Leila jumped for joy when my mom signed the contract. She jumped so high you would have thought she would have reached the stars. That was the start of her career.

The deal had started out small. The girls only could record music and perform in places close to home. The girls would slowly get more and more recognition. In 1999 a few months after my brother got sent away to a juvenile home, Obsession got its first hit single, Pray For Me. It debuted at the number 88 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list. It was a smashing success climbing the charts all the way up to number 46 even. Because the song was such a hit success Daddy G wanted the song to hit big. He talked about stuff like music videos, an album, touring. My mother, however, didn't approve of this.

This would take time away from their studying and the moms didn't like that. They, however, were coaxed into letting the girls do it with Daddy G saying it was gonna be 'just one album'. They agreed because they were okay with the standards and school was nearing being over.

The girls had done a music video for Pray For Me and that made them skyrocket in fame. Wherever you went you would always hear Pray For Me being played. Because of this grand success they quickly got to work on their album. They had other singles on there like Do Your Thang, The Boys Tryna' Talk, and my personal favorite Your Next Obsession. Do Your Thang reached number 64, The Boys Tryna' Talk reached number 52, and Your Next Obsession reached number 32. Other charted songs from the album were Nobody I Love More Than My Momma which reached number 90 and Our Time which reached number 56. The album, Obsession, charted at 73 on the Billboard 200.

Obsession was slowly getting bigger and bigger. Which meant that a tour was in the topic. Daddy G wanted the girls to do a tour of the United States for their album. He wanted to call it the Obsession Experience Tour but the moms weren't having it. "First you over here having our babies record an album, taking their focus away from school and now you're talking about a tour. They still children they ain't ready for no tour." Corey had told him.

But of course, with a little bit of whining and begging Obsession, we're going to be doing their first tour. To make sure they kept their grades up though they had to do school online which wasn't really a problem. The tour lasted six months and was very successful. And because of that Daddy G demanded more.

They went from just simply doing shows for people in their town to doing interviews with radio stations and doing a UK tour to celebrate the release of their album Hypnotic. More smashing hits, more music videos, more albums, more touring. Obsession had been worked to the bone.

In 2000, when Leila was 15 and I was 10, Leila and mom had a big fight. Leila wanted Momma to give her permission to be taken under the care of Daddy G so she could have more assistance with her music. She even had the papers for god's sake. But Momma wasn't having it. She repeatedly said no and told Leila that she would never approve of it.

But again Leila had to take matters into her own hands. Later that day she spent all night forging Momma's signature when she finally got it she hid the papers in her book bag and was going to give them to Daddy G over the weekend.

Leila eventually gave them to Daddy G and the plan was all set she was going to be under the care of Daddy G for five months to work on improving and perfecting her music. Leila had two weeks to tell my mom before she would be off to Daddy G's mansion making music day and night. During those two weeks, she had not said a peep about it. Momma didn't know that she was going until Daddy G showed up at the door asking for Leila.

Leila had come out with her stuff all packed and Momma got the hint. She felt betrayed. It was as bad as getting stabbed in the heart by your own blood. Momma and Leila argued for minutes that seemed like hours while Daddy G stood at the doorway and me peering from the hallway.

Leila won the argument of course. Guilting Mommy into letting her have her way. She walked out that day and in a way it feels like she hasn't come back since. Momma and Leila have had a strained relationship ever since.

Leila only lives with us in March, April, and May before going back to live with Daddy G. She'll only come back for birthday's and holidays and occasions like that but sometimes she's MIA. I try to not think of it too much but sometimes it eats me up inside. It's like she forgot who her family was. I love my sister. I'll always love my sister. But not having her around makes me feel like she doesn't care about me and I feel like we're growing apart every day.

In 2000 Momma was hit with another heartbreak although it didn't last very long. But for Momma one year feels like a century. My older brother and sister left the house to go be with their foster parents. Their mother, Angela, had signed a legal agreement saying that my mom and dad were their legal caretakers but if they wanted they could be with their foster parents she had set up for them. Liana, my older sister, didn't want to leave but Isaac, my older brother, had wanted to go and she didn't want to be caught in any crossfires.

Isaac left because my mom wouldn't let him go see his mom. This hurt Isaac so much because he felt like he was being restricted from having a personal connection from his mom. Liana didn't really care about having a close relationship with her real mom. She loved my mom-which Isaac did too-and knew that whatever reason she wasn't living with her was something terrible.

They lived with Angela for about a year and from the stories I hear it was terrible. There's something for everybody in her house. Drug addiction, alcoholism, abuse, abandonment and neglect, there was always something wrong with living with Angela and I guess they had just found out. When they came back I was relieved. I had missed them terribly and I was sure they weren't gonna leave again.

So now you're asking what were those long-ass stories for if you're not going to answer my question. Why am I given things I can't afford?

Well, I would tell you that those stories weren't pointless. It served a point. The reason my mom gives me these things, things I don't even need, is because she's afraid that I'll end up leaving her or resenting her because she didn't give me everything I wanted. And this isn't only with me.

It's with my older brother, Elijah, and my younger brother and sister, Tyler and Lori. She doesn't want us to ever not get anything we want so she takes us shopping every week spending thousands of dollars every month.

Now your next question might be where she's getting this money from. And I'm here to assure that it's not through some illegal source. My mom's a nurse and gets paid $12,650 every two weeks. Most of the time though this money goes to buying stuff that we don't even need. Sometimes there's enough money so that we can eat something other than leftovers but that's rare. And some days we don't even have a meal, those days are sparse though.

I walk into my bathroom and yawn going towards the toilet to relieve myself. I always feel like the weirdest ideas and thoughts I have are on the toilet. It's kinda weird that I think of the toilet as a thinking space.

Today though I didn't have any weird or obscure thoughts I just thought about what was going on in my life. Today was the last day of school. The last day I was probably gonna go to that school.

You see I'm going to South Africa because I got a deal with the African Wrestling Alliance. I had sent emails to about 50 wrestling promotions and they were the only ones to accept. I'm only 13 years old so of course, I can't tell them "Hey actually I'm thirteen years old don't be mad about it". So I told a bit of a fib...well a big fib, that I was 16 years old. I would say 18 but honestly, I couldn't pass for 18 even if I tried.

I'm 5'0 which had only just happened a few months ago I'm super small but I've got pretty thick thighs. And I've still got a bit of a baby-face.

I get over to the bathtub and turn it on. I get my washcloth and put it in there too. I start taking my clothes off as the water is running. I don't take showers. I know what your thinking that sounds disgusting and I probably sound really dirty. But there's more to the story as usual with me.

I don't like the feeling of water just rushing on me. It's like confined rain and I don't really like rain. I don't know I'm pretty weird about a lot of things. I'd also say that I like taking bubble baths too much. I'm opposed to showering and only shower when I have to. So basically when I'm over someone else's house. To me, it just always feels wrong.

Once the bathtub is filled up to my liking I get in there. The hot water immediately burns my body but I kinda like the feeling. I swish around in the bath. I'm never fully awake in the morning until I'm in the bath.

The first couple of minutes of getting into the bath I just sit there and occasionally swish around, randomly thinking. It kinda gets me awake for the day. My mind drifts off again to the events of today. I was going to be leaving once June started. My uncle James was going to take me to Africa and be my caretaker.

My uncle James has been in love with wrestling since he was a kid, a trait he inquired from his dad. The fact that I was doing something he loved made him so excited to go with me. But I owe this all to him.

He introduced me to wrestling at a young age. Actually when I came out of the womb. He used to always tell me when I was a kid that he had just finished putting in a tape of last Monday's Raw after he had found out the hospital my mom was at had a DVR. As he was finally done with putting it in and it started I was born. It's one of those magical and mystical moments that you hear about and don't believe but know is true.

He said that the first thing I looked at was the screen and he saw my eyes sparkle when I saw it. From that moment on he knew (and maybe I did too) that I would love wrestling. From that moment forward he would always have me watch wrestling with him even taking me to some shows.

I've always been so infatuated with wrestling. I loved the amazing maneuvers, the beautiful storytelling, and the amazement and excitement that you get from watching it. I loved it all.

Once I feel awake enough I reach for my shower gel. It was from Bath & Body Works (like most of my other body care stuff) and was called Pink Velvet Cupcake. It smelled really sweet and had the smell of red berries, marshmallows, and sugar. It was kinda strong though. The kinds of shower gel where the scent penetrates your nose and all you can smell is that. But I liked it anyway.

I squirted a glob on my washcloth and scrubbed the foam all over my body. I don't have many problems with my body. I'm only an A cup which compared to my classmates is very small but I like it that way. I would much rather prefer small, weightless boobs than big, saggy, and heavy mountains. My stomach was flat, a little too flat for someone my age and I was skinny, too skinny. Skinny enough to look anorexic (I'll get to that later). I didn't have much of a butt but it wasn't like I didn't have one it was just small. My hips well they were there. They didn't fit my body at all. As well as my thighs. My hips were super big and were wide and were made for someone with a big ass, not a flat one. Sometimes I think that God wanted me to be thick but my stomach said otherwise (more on that later). My thighs were big and were as big as my stomach and sometimes when I walked they would slap together which would be kinda embarrassing because lots of dudes would look at me weird because of it.

I would say that the only thing I didn't really like about my body was how skinny I am. I'm not anorexic. I don't think I'm fat at all and I don't under-eat because I've got weight problems. That's not the case at all. I have ARFID. It stands for Avoidant or Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It means that I won't eat certain foods by the way they look, smell, or taste which would then restrict me from getting sufficient calories and nutrients. In this way, it affects my everyday life.

I'm small for my age because of this and it's hard for me to try new foods and eat the food I need because of it. No matter how hard I try to eat something I know I won't like I always end up throwing it up. Sometimes even if it's a food I like I won't eat it because my stomach tells me it's not hungry when it actually is. My stomach has all the control over me. It led me to not liking certain foods like cheese and most recently sausage. I used to love those foods but now I can't even handle eating them. I rarely eat vegetables and it doesn't help that food I like to eat is served far and few. So I always end up going to sleep on an empty stomach or on a jelly sandwich.

Once I'm done washing up I let the water out and step onto the rug outside the bathtub. I dry my feet and slide on my slides again and grab my nearby pink towel and wrap it around me. I walk out of my marble bathroom and walk back into my room. I dry my body and grab my Cherry Blossom lotion and lather it onto my body.

My room is pink like most of my things. This used to be my brother's room and it was painted blue. The house was full of people so he was okay with moving into the basement while I took his room. My dad and I then painted the room baby pink with the tops left white to look pristine. I say my dad and I painted but it was more me painting a big circle then my dad fixing it. I was about four when this happened. I smile every time I look back on that day. Things were so much simpler. Now everything's so convoluted.

But really the pink isn't seeable because I have posters everywhere on my walls. I look around at my immense collection of posters. It starts over on my pearl white door which has a sign that says my name on it on the outside and on the inside a Rob Van Dam poster of him in mid-air performing the Five-Star Frogsplash and was signed by Rob Van Dam himself. On the wall next to the door was my D-Generation X poster which had Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, and X-Pac on it doing their usual poses and was signed by all of them. The poster under it had Edge and Christian on it doing the five-second pose and was again signed. Under that was my metal waste bin which was filled to the brim with garbage that needed to be thrown out.

On the next wall was my Hardy Boyz poster with them doing their signature hand signs which with no shock had been signed. Under it was my Rock poster with the words 'The Great One' embellished on it, it had not however been signed. The next poster was the WrestleMania 5 poster with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage on it with the wording saying 'The Mega-Powers Explode'. There were five posters lined up that had a compilation of Attitude Era wrestlers which was signed by Chris Jericho, Mankind, Kurt Angle, and Test to name a few. Under the posters was my mantle that held my stuffed animals and other items from my childhood. Next to the mantle was a laundry basket for my clothes so that when I take off my clothes I know where to put them and my mom knows where to get them. This reminded me that I needed to get my clothes out of the bathroom so I can put them in there.

The wall breaks into my bathroom which had only been installed just for me. The tiles on the floor were a mix of blue, grey, and white and the walls were a lilac purple from the top to the bottom. The bathtub was pristine white and had golden tiles on the wall it was on. Near the bathtub was a rack holding my washcloth, towel, and a bathrobe that I occasionally wore. The bathrobe was nothing special and was just big and white and extra fluffy.

Next was the toilet which I regularly cleaned because I can't handle having a dirty bathroom. There was my sink which had an oak wood cabinet under it which I would put my cleaning supplies in. The sink was a pearl white which was topped of with the chrome faucet. On the sink were my blue toothbrush, pack of mint floss, spearmint toothpaste, a tool to pick food out of my teeth and braces, and my Irish Spring soap which was put in a container for holding.

At the foot of my bathtub and the sink were two lush white rugs with baby ducks on it. It was honestly the cutest thing ever. The wall cuts back to my Randy Orton, Mankind, Triple H, Batista, Evolution, Kane, Goldberg, and Kevin Nash and Scott Hall posters with most of them being signed. Under it was shelves that held many of my wrestling action figures that I meticulously stood up and posed. The shelves had a glass case over them so my siblings wouldn't go over there and fuck up my shit.

The next wall was my women's wrestling wall. It had a Team Xtreme poster which was signed by The Hardy Boyz and Lita. A Lita poster which was signed by her which was accompanied by a Trish Stratus poster which she had signed too. The next poster was of Victoria which I had also gotten signed. And finally was my Chyna poster which I had decorated with stars for no other reason than I was just bored. Under the posters was my flatscreen TV which was mounted to the wall overhead my window seat which held four windows. It had two large cabinets next to it which I had put all my other action figures in. And had five accompanying smaller cabinets underneath. Inside was other wrestling collectibles and some more action figures. On the cabinets were a collection of hand-made posters of my favorite wrestlers not just from WWE but from different wrestling promotions. I had cut out pictures of them and then glued them to a paper. None of them were signed.

On the wall that starts before my closet had two of my most treasured posters. My ECW originals and WCW originals posters. They were both signed by many ECW and WCW wrestlers and I highly cherished both of them. My closet was huge (another renovation by my dad). It had a big oak wood sliding door on it which had 60 more hand-made posters of some of my favorite wrestlers. Once you got into the closet you were met with a bar that stretched to both ends which held all my clothes. Well not all of them.

There were four corner dressers that had an assortment of pants, underwear, socks, and sleepwear. The metal bar hosted many sweaters, jackets, pullovers, coats, dresses, turtlenecks, long-sleeved shirts, jumpsuits, rompers, overalls, and polo shirts. In this part of the closet, we're posters of other things I liked like anime, rock bands, and hip-hop artists. The walls were sky blue and it had a matching blue carpet. Once you push past the clothes you are met with another door leading to my second closet which my dad had built so I could fit all my clothes somewhere. It had pictures from my childhood all over it.

The room was decorated with fairy lights and had two dressers on opposite ends. At the base wall, there was a small mantle for my jewelry and accessories. The dressers contained my crop tops, shorts, hot pants, short-sleeved shirts, spaghetti strap shirts, sleeveless shirts, vests, v-necks, and a whole lot more. The walls were a creamy white but had little doodles my friends who could draw painted. The carpet was fluffy and baby pink like it was in my room and there were two beanbags in there. There was also a mini couch in there for lounging. It's kinda like a second room for me.

No posters are hanging in the room but there are framed posters lining the floor. There is WrestleMania I, The Wrestling Classic, WrestleMania II, WrestleMania III, Survivor Series (1987), WrestleMania IV, SummerSlam (1988), Survivor Series (1988), Royal Rumble (1989), WrestleMania V, SummerSlam (1989), Survivor Series (1989), No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie, Royal Rumble (1990), WrestleMania VI, SummerSlam (1990), Survivor Series (1990), Royal Rumble (1991), WrestleMania VII, SummerSlam (1991), Survivor Series (1991), This Tuesday in Texas, Royal Rumble (1992), WrestleMania VIII, SummerSlam (1992), Survivor Series (1992), Royal Rumble (1993), WrestleMania IX, King of the Ring (1993), SummerSlam (1993), Survivor Series (1993), Royal Rumble (1994), WrestleMania X, King of the Ring (1994), SummerSlam (1994), Survivor Series (1994), Royal Rumble (1995), WrestleMania XI, King of the Ring (1995), In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks, SummerSlam (1995), In Your House 3: Triple Header, In Your House 4: Great White North, Survivor Series (1995), In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings, Royal Rumble (1996), In Your House 6: Rage in the Cage, WrestleMania XII, In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies, In Your House 8: Beware of Dog, King of the Ring (1996), In Your House 9: International Incident, SummerSlam (1996), In Your House 10: Mind Games, In Your House 11: Buried Alive, Survivor Series (1996), In Your House 12: It's Time, and Royal Rumble (1997).

In the room next to a metal waste bin is a small black door that requires you to crouch down to get into. It has a framed In Your House: Premiere poster bolted to it. It leads to a secret room that even my dad forgot he made. The room was painted black and had accompanying black carpet. It wasn't as small and cramped as the squeeze to get in the room was.

In there were more framed posters. Bolted to the wall was posters of In Your House 13: Final Four, WrestleMania XIII, In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker, In Your House 15: A Cold Day in Hell, King of the Ring (1997), In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede, SummerSlam (1997), Ground Zero: In Your House, One Night Only, Badd Blood: In Your House, Survivor Series (1997), D-Generation X: In Your House, Royal Rumble (1998), No Way Out of Texas: In Your House, WrestleMania XIV, Unforgiven: In Your House, Over the Edge: In Your House, King of the Ring (1998), Fully Loaded: In Your House, SummerSlam (1998), Breakdown: In Your House, Judgement Day: In Your House, Survivor Series (1998), Capital Carnage, Rock Bottom: In Your House, Royal Rumble (1999), St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House, WrestleMania XV, Backlash (1999), No Mercy (UK 1999), Over the Edge (1999), King of the Ring (1999), Fully Loaded (1999), SummerSlam (1999), Unforgiven (1999), Rebellion (1999), No Mercy (1999), Survivor Series (1999), Armageddon (1999), and Royal Rumble (2000).

There were framed posters also propped up on the wall. They were of No Way Out (2000), WrestleMania 2000, Backlash (2000), Insurrextion (2000), Judgement Day (2000), King of the Ring (2000), Fully Loaded (2000), SummerSlam (2000), Unforgiven (2000), No Mercy (2000), Survivor Series (2000), Rebellion (2000), Armageddon (2000), Royal Rumble (2001), No Way Out (2001), WrestleMania X-Seven, Backlash (2001), Insurrextion (2001), Judgement Day (2001), and King of the Ring (2001).

The only other things in there were some collectibles I have, a few Chris Jericho posters on the purple ceiling, a metal waste bin, and my secret stash. Of what you may ask? Well, that's a story for another day. This room was the only one that had a painted ceiling with the others only getting a repainting of cream white.

Once you get back from all that renovated madness you reach my wall opposite of the end of my closet which has two posters for WWF and WWE originals. Which was one of the hardest things to get signed. The next wall which was overhead of my bed was full of old WWF superstars posters and in the middle of that, a big signed Chris Jericho poster.

My bed though was something different. At first, it was a double mattress bed with ring ropes around it. I got tired of hitting my head on my wall so my dad had a new idea. He removed the bed from my room and got started on a new one. I had to sleep in my older sister's room for three weeks because of this. He made the support of the bed and even put a new light pink cushion headboard on it. He kept the double mattresses. He then made another bed and put it in my second closet. It was a WWE ring bed that looked super authentic and was heightened so we could go up on the stairs. When I have sleepovers with my friends we usually sleep in that bed. I also use it to play wrestle with my friends and brother which isn't a big problem since my dad reinforced the bed so it won't break on impact.

On one side of my bed there is a desk with a spinning chair for me to do work at. I keep pictures of me, my family, and my friends on it. I also keep little toys on it. On the other side of my bed was my bedside table which had my lamp and alarm clock on it. The only thing in my drawers were journals and diaries. And that's pretty much my room told in a painstakingly detailed manner. I got finished putting on my body care products and put on my underwear which I would always set out the night before. I walked back to the bathroom and got my dirty clothes and put them into the laundry basket.

I walked over to my closet and slid the door open and went into one of the dressers and pulled out one of my pairs of ripped jeans and a pair of fishnet stockings. I pick up a pair of Champion socks too. I look in the closet for a pair of shoes to wear. All of my shoes were in the first closet and were propped near the walls. I had finally settled on a pair of Adidas Superstars. I walked back out of the closet to set my clothes on my bed and the shoes near it.

I walk back into the closet and went to the second closet and looked around until I found a simple black crop top. I put it on and then looked through my jewelry until I settled on two pairs of butterfly and sun earrings which I put on in the spotlighted mirror overhead. I also put on a simple choker. I go back into my room and go to my bathroom to retrieve my brother's ashes necklace and put it on my wrist to act as a bracelet. I pick up my rings and put them back on my left middle finger. I go back to my room to put on my other articles of clothes. When people get to know me they usually think I'm weird and quirky. I guess it's because of the odd things I do like only taking baths, hating to get splashed with water (I'll explain later), not liking cheese (because of ARFID which they usually wouldn't know), or not liking to be touched by some people (a story for another day). I wouldn't say I'm weird or quirky but that I'm just trying to live my life the way I want to. I just do things that seem abnormal so I can live my normal.

So now you want the story to the not liking getting splashed with water. Well, I'll tell you. It really just stems down to me not wanting to get wet. I don't like touching wet surfaces and don't like getting hit with water. It's just something I don't want to endure. The only times I'll happily oblige to be near water is when I'm taking a bath, going swimming, or throwing water balloons and even that one can catch me by surprise. It's so bad that my mom now has to dry every single plate and silverware because I don't want to touch it while it's wet. I'm a bit of a whiny brat.

I wipe whatever dirt is on my feet from walking barefoot with my towel and then slip on my slides and put my towel in the laundry basket. I leave my socks on the bed and my shoes on the floor and check the time on my alarm clock. It was 4:36 which meant I wasn't off track. I go into the bathroom and do my face care routine. It really just consists of me wetting my face with water, putting on some stuff for my dry skin, and all the other products beauty articles say that is good for my skin. Once I was done I walked back into my room to check the time again. It was 4:54 which meant that my mother had already been in the shower and was probably washing the dishes just now. She was probably even meticulously drying every crevice.

At 5:00 she would probably be done with washing and drying the dishes and would start waking up my little brother and sister. You see I go to the middle school which means we have to be at school by 7:30 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday and on Thursday we have to be at school by 8:30. If you take the bus which I sometimes do you have to be at the bus stop at 6:50 every other day than Thursday and on Thursday you have to be there at 7:50. School doesn't let out until 2:20, 2:15 for bus riders.

At the elementary school though on every day but Thursday, they have to be at school at 7:45 which means getting to the bus stop at 7:20. On Thursday's they have to be at school at 8:45 so you would have to be at the bus stop at 8:20. At the high school, they have the same schedule as the middle school.

My mom usually wakes up at 4:00 and gets ready and usually finishes at 4:15. We have six bathrooms, near the kitchen, near the living room, near the second-floor bedrooms, near the third-floor bedrooms, in the attic, and the basement. My mom would first wake up Liana who is in her senior year and she would be done by 4:35. Elijah, who was in his junior year, would be done by 4:30. After a while of my mom waking me up I just wake myself up and use my bathroom and at 5:00 my mom makes sure I didn't just sleep through my alarm clock.

She wakes my little brother and sister up at 5:00. My little brother, Tyler, is usually done by 5:15 after he casually takes a nap in the bathtub. My little sister, Lori, is usually done at 5:20 after she's done either having a bubble bath party or pretending she's swimming. My dad gets up at 6:00 and is usually done at 6:15. He's not a morning person like I am but the difference between us is I know that the faster I get this done the longer I sleep.

We usually have breakfast at 6:30 and it was only 4:55 so I could sleep in longer. I slip off my slides at my bedside and get into my bed snuggling into my Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels covered sheets and blankets. If you haven't caught the pattern yet I'll tell you straight up.

I fall into a deep sleep letting the wondering abyss of drowsiness overtake me. I don't know why I love Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels so much. Something about them is just so hypnotic that I can't get enough of them. I would say though that I'm a bigger Chris Jericho fan than a Shawn Michaels fan. On my ceiling which is painted to look like a galaxy, something my dad's friend did, is many signed posters of Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels. Now I know what you think. She's a creepy obsessed Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho fan. And you might be true. But I just see it as my love for professional wrestling and professional wrestling stars. Plus there were other people on my ceiling.

There was Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Raven, Rob Van Dam, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Edge, Christian, and many other wrestlers who I love or think should be up there. Many of them were signed which I was very proud of. Was it a bit crazy? Yes. Was it obsessive? Yes. Was I still proud of it? Hell yeah! This was a testament of my love of professional wrestling and I will not hear otherwise.

_**6:30 am** _   
_**———** _

I heard my alarm clock go off again which I quickly ended it's waking pursuit. I got up again putting my slides back on and grabbing my glasses from my bedside table and putting them on. I walk out of my room and into the hallway. There are five floors to my house. The basement, the main floor, the second floor, the third floor, and the attic. My room was on the third floor and was the second biggest in the house.

When my parents bought the house in 1987 it had the same floors. It was a four bathroom and a seven-bedroom house. My parents are firm believers that we can't get our own room until we're five years old. At that time all six of my siblings were under five so they all stayed in my parent's room. Nobody had a room until my brother Noah turned five in 1988. He didn't get to enjoy it for long because he well...it's a long story. Noah's room was across the hall from my parent's room which took up pretty much the whole wall.

Khalil turned five that same year with them being two days apart. And if you are asking yes they do share a birthday party and they do it on Noah's birthday. That didn't stop my dad from not letting Khalil sleep in his new room. My dad starts making their rooms once they turn four so they can be prepared when they turn five. The next year Isaac got his room which by this time Noah was still alive. That was when my dad started making renovations. He put a bathroom in his room because all of them would crowd the bathroom.

In 1990, the year I was born, Leila and Liana get rooms on the third floor. They were at a tie for the second biggest room until my dad expanded my room. Their rooms are both pretty similar to each other's and they're close for siblings that don't share a single parent. In 1992, I was two by this point, Elijah got the third biggest room which was across from Leila and Liana's. Then in 1995, I was finally getting my room. In 1994, Elijah made a compromise that he would take the basement so that I could have the room. My dad went all out with the renovations. My little brother Tyler was a couple months old by this point so he went all out. He expanded my room and even gave me a balcony that was accessible by a door that was near my window seat. He put in two bathrooms so there was no fighting over who can go into which bathrooms.

By 1998 my parents were stuck. The only other accessible areas to have a bedroom were in the attic or the basement and my parents were opposed to the attic idea. They didn't want anyone taking anyone's old room because they kind of like the feeling of keeping it the same. They put my little brother in the basement with my big brother. My dad expanded the basement and made my brother's room split in the middle which was pretty cool. This also gave more room for our game room down there. My parents gave up and by 2000 they gave half of the attic to Lori. There was no other place for her to go.

I was kind of mad because I really wanted the attic. But in 2002 they ended up giving it to me and I just put anything I couldn't fit in my room and my Chris Jericho stuff in there. It's kinda my resting place for Chris Jericho. Now our house is unnecessarily big and was even the biggest in our gated community. As I'll say again we aren't rich we're just pretty well off people who spend too much of our money on frivolous things.

Now you might be asking where my father is in this whole situation? Well, he's there and he knows what's going on. He tries to stop it but he really can't. He really just tries to do the best he can with the money from his two jobs, working on houses and DJing. Times were tough but we made it by.

I see Leila and Liana also coming out of their rooms. "Good morning." I say giving them both a hug. "Good morning." They say back in unison. We travel down the stairs together as we always do every morning. Routine was a big thing in this family. I see Isaac coming out of his room as we get on the second floor. "Hey, Isaac," I say and give him a side hug he returns it and says hi back. We all get to the kitchen together already seeing Elijah and Tyler in the dining room at the dining table. Same as usual just how I liked it. We all sat around at the dining table as Lori finally came downstairs. She was always the last one down since her room was in the attic.

"Hey, Lori," I say and she just looked at me and waved. She was a bit of a brat at times and was a definite drama queen. But at least she knew when to tone it down.

We all sit around the table and everyone's staring at me. It was weird. I had told them all that I was leaving only a couple of weeks ago and I think it still hasn't settled. Especially for my mom. She's been practically counting down the days. I didn't want to do this to her but this is something I've always wanted and I needed to take this opportunity. It was selfish I know but I wanted this. I wish there was another way but there wasn't.

My mom and dad come to the table and give us our food. I was given grits mixed up with scrambled eggs with broken bits of bacon sprinkled on top, two pieces of toast with strawberry jelly on it, two pancakes lathered with maple syrup, and a Pillsbury biscuit. I immediately start eating my food. It was delicious. My mom makes a good breakfast. Dinner, however...We can't talk about that tragedy. We're better off letting my dad handle that. I see my mom hand me my apple juice which I drink half of. I lay back in my seat after I realize I've already eaten half of my food.

"Dang! Hungry hungry hippo you want some more?" Elijah says, teasing me. I roll my eyes and say, "No but it looks like you do s-since you're almost done too." He cracks a smile after a while of staring at me stone-faced. Now, this is how our breakfast should be.

"Aren't you going to do something special for school today, Lauren?" My dad asks before eating two sausages. I grab a sausage from his plate and eat it. It's actually better than I remember. I haven't had one in a while. I stand up and go to grab myself some sausage. "Uh yeah. We-we're going to have an fr-free day but I don't know what we're d-doing other than that." I say stuttering a bit and going back to my seat.

I have a bit of a stuttering problem. It's a long story so I won't bore you with it until later. I munch on my sausages before decided to break them apart and buy them into my grits. I finished my grits and pancakes in quick succession as the conversations rolled on.

"Do you have any idea where you want to go to college?" My mom asks Leila.

"I'm probably not going to college," Leila says and I can see my mom's heart slowly shatter. My mom puts a big emphasis on the importance of education. She finished high school, college, and nursing school all while most of the time pregnant. She believes that if she could do all of this pregnant than any of us could do the same. My mom just really wants us to all go to college so we can have that credit to our name even if it isn't really important to our careers.

"Why aren't you going to college?" She asks, her voice bounces between highs and lows and she takes tiny bites of her food. "Well, it's just that I think it's pointless if I know that I won't need to go if I'm just going to be making music for the rest of my life," Leila says as if she doesn't know that the things she is saying are like dynamite to our mother and she's about to blow her up.

"But what if you don't. What if your only popular now and then people get tired of your music. You'll have nothing to fall back on. That's why you should go to college. You need a rebound." My mom stares mini daggers at my sister and everyone just quietly stares. Leila bites the corner of her lip, something she does when she knows she lost an argument and is thinking about a good comeback so she can win it. That was my sister, stubborn and persistent.

Leila puffs out her lips and says, "So your basically saying that I'm not gonna make it. I really thought you were supportive." The tone she speaks in sounds hurt which makes you want to think that she's affected by my mother's comments but you can hear in her words the judgment she's pulling. My sister had mastered the art of saying words she didn't mean. You would know she didn't mean them but she makes you feel like she meant it. It's quite complicated I know but she was good at manipulating. One of the best in my opinion. In our family that's a big thing.

Lots of people in my family are manipulators. I myself am too. We have all mastered the trade of tricking people into getting what we wanted. I was good but my sister was new levels of great. She had this certain air about her that made you believe in her every word but at the same time, you don't. That's something I aspire to do. Not to everyone but like when I need to. It could be a good skill for when I wrestle for the AWA.

My mom drops her fork with a clang and stares at my sister. My mother was not a manipulator at all. She was too light-hearted for that. She knew what Leila was doing but she believed in her words so she started ass-kissing her to fix the situation. This happens a lot. "No, no, no. It's not like that. I just wanted to tell you the importance of education so you won't end up not going to college. I love your music and I think everyone else does. I'm just saying you can be a star with a bachelor's degree." I can see the corner of Leila's mouth rise and she blinks two times slowly. A sign of victory.

"It's fine I understand Mommy. I might go to the school's college. It'll be close so I can stay with you." Leila says in her fake voice. It's more high-pitched and she adds the 'Mommy' to sound innocent. The amount of fakery she displays on a daily basis is unlimited.

We all finish our breakfast after that little showdown and the conversations stay normal from then on. Our breakfasts our pretty much like that minus the tiny argument. This was my family, this was my routine, this was my life. And I liked it that way. I hated change and that's weird talk from someone who is literally moving to a new continent in less than a month. I liked my life as is but if change had to happen I would let it. Good new experiences are fun and bad ones sometimes are too. Even though I really wasn't ready for change I knew I had to let it naturally happen. I've got to get accustomed to this sort of stuff or else I don't think I can ever leave the tight grip of my mother.

I hear a knock on the door and I answer it to see my best friends Jon, Mike, Nick, Grace, Kelcie, Maria, Angelina, and my boyfriend, Isaiah. Jon immediately goes to the kitchen fixing himself a plate which makes Mike and Nick follow him. Isaiah comes over to me and hugs me from behind. I can see Isaac and Elijah tensing up from the hug. They're super protective over me and we're pretty angry to hear that I had a boyfriend.

Isaiah's been my boyfriend since I was 10. July 18, 2000, to be exact. He was 12 and I can remember him asking me out like knowing my own name. Which now saying it makes it worst since sometimes I can't even remember my own name. That's off-topic though. We were both super shy about it and we were blushing our asses off. We were on the swings, gently swinging back and forth and he almost in a whisper told me that he liked me and that he wanted to go out with me. I remember being so nervous and stuttering on the word yes about nine times. He got off the swing and pulled me into an awkward hug and that's how our relationship began.

We never really did anything but talk to each other and hang out. We hugged and sometimes held hands but there was no kissing. I wasn't even supposed to be dating at 10. My mom said I couldn't have a boyfriend until I was 13 so this was already breaking a rule and I wasn't going any further with it. We didn't have our first kiss until my 13th birthday party. It was after school when I was walking home with him. Before I walked into my house he held my hand gently and then used the other hand to cup my cheek. He leaned in and kissed me and I swear it felt like I was being revived. It was that magical feeling everyone always talked about. Our relationship didn't come into notice until two weeks ago and for the most part, my family is okay with it. Ok being that you can have a boyfriend but the only touching he can do is a three-second hug. I love my family but at times their a little too overprotective.

I accept the hug from Isaiah and get up to put my plate in the sink. As I'm coming into the kitchen Jon is coming out with a plate. Mike and Nick are seated in a couple of chairs while my girl group of friends are on the couch arguing about what channel to watch. This was my normal.

I walk over to sit in the loveseat but Jon immediately swipes the seat from me before I can sit down. He looks up at me with a cheeky grin and starts devouring his food. I awkwardly stand up before sitting on the floor. "So w-what are you guys doing here anyway?" I ask staring at my humongous group of friends. I have a lot of friends but I was proud to call them my best friends.

"Well we all wanted to walk to school with you today so we all came here. What did you think we came to harvest your organs or something?" Nick says and I chuckle. He was always the one who made all the jokes that we would all find ourselves wheezing over.

"No, I just th-thought you guys were going to be at Jon's house."

"Well, Jon's grandma didn't want us crowding her house because she said we make too much noise. I just think she doesn't want us to interrupt her from watching Jeopardy." Grace says, her hand is placed on her chin and her legs are crossed. Grace was a rare beauty. I thought she was more beautiful than me. Where I was an average lightskin girl she was a beautiful ebony goddess. Her skin managed to always shine even through the darkness. She was our glow girl, the glue to our girl group.

"Well, that makes sense," I say and move my hair out of my face. I look over at my family to find that my mom was recording us. It wasn't unnatural as she liked to document moments in my life, as she did with all my siblings too, but I didn't expect her to be silently recording us while we talked.

"Mom!" I whine even though I had a bit of a grin on my face, "Why do you always have to be re-recording me?" I ask getting up from the floor and walking over to her.

My mom shoves the camera in my face. "I've got to savor the little moments you know that." I chuckle and give my mom a hug. When I'm older I would love to look back on these things so it's a good thing my mom records us before we get too old and don't remember what our childhood was like.

"Hey, I thought you were gonna let us take you to school like we always do." My dad says. We had this little tradition that the first and the last days of school my parents would drive us to school. We had been doing it for a while but now I wanted to walk with all my friends. This was a problem. My dad had a van but that couldn't possibly fit us all. I would probably be up front with him, Isaiah, Jon, and Mike would be in the middle if we put in the third seat, and then Nick, Grace, Maria, and Angelina could squeeze into the back and Kelcie would probably be fine on the floor. I know it seems like we can fit everybody but we're missing one key person.

My mom.

She always loved doing stuff like that and not having her there would hurt me and my mom. I didn't know what to do. Do I abandon my friends or my family?

"How about this," I hear Maria start and everyone stares at her, "Why don't you just drive her to the bus stop and then we can all walk to school together. So then you can videotape all of us walking to school." Maria finishes and everyone keeps their eyes glued on her. Maria was undeniably the smartest out of all of us. She could fix any problem she sees. She was someone we could all depend on.

"So are we doing that?" I questioned, I made sure to make my big hazel eyes so that I could charm my parents into letting us walk ourselves to school.

"Ok, I'll let you do that." My mom sighed and finally turned off the camera. I went over to the kitchen to check the time. It was 6:45. I wouldn't have to go till 7:10. I had time. I rushed upstairs which caused all my friends to immediately run after me. As I got into my room I thought that I should probably brush my teeth now so I don't put it off until later. I got into the bathroom and immediately started brushing my teeth, making sure to get every crevice. Meanwhile, my friends were in my room sitting on my bed.

"Do you guys really have to w-watch me brush my teeth?" I say between gargling mouthwash.

"Yeah, it's probably my favorite part of the day." Jon jokes and I smile at him. I've known him since the sixth grade and although I had my doubts about him he really was a great friend. We were super close, as I was with all of my best friends, and we got along really well.

I finish brushing my teeth and picking food out of my teeth and braces and then I take out my makeup which was hidden in a big cabinet and did my makeup going for a more natural look. My hand wasn't very steady and went wherever it wanted so it was a bit tough to stay in the right region. After a lot of mess-ups, I was finally done and I began taking my hair out of it's du-rag and I put it into two braids that lead into buns. I went back into my room and Angelina hands me my socks and I put them on.

"Can't you just like do this before you eat breakfast?" Maria asks, staring at her nails. As much as she annoys me Maria was my best friend and a great friend to hang out with.

"Yeah cause br-brushing your teeth and then eating br-breakfast sounds like a smart decision." I retorted, I'm not in the mood to start an argument with Maria but she did ask a pretty stupid question.

She doesn't say anything back but I hear her sigh and she gets off of the bed and walks to my stuffed animals. She always particularly liked playing with my stuffed animals. I never knew why and I never had the whim to ask.

Kelcie hands me my shoes which I slip on with ease. "Adidas gang!" Kelcie says and we both hold up peace signs to each other. Kelcie honestly was a mess and a half. She was always coming up with a new weird joke and randomly saying the oddest things. I met her after we both attended the soccer tryouts in sixth grade. Sixth graders are technically not supposed to play a sport because they have to focus on their work as they had just come from elementary school but the school allowed two sixth graders to join the teams and only two. Sometimes there's competition for the two spots like when I tried out for volleyball that same year there were about fifteen sixth-graders vying for the spots. I didn't make the team but I watched a lot of practices when I didn't have soccer practice. I loved playing sports and it was an integral part of my life.

I checked on the time again to see that it was 6:53. I stare at my friends, my lips pressed against each other. "What do y-y'all want to do?" I ask slightly chewing on my lip. It was one of the weird habits I had. Everyone stares back at me like 'We don't know either.' which kinda makes me mad. Why was everyone so inconclusive?

"Why don't we talk about our summer plans?" Mike says and I freeze up. You see the problem is that I haven't told them that I'm going to South Africa yet. I know it's a big thing that I should have shared with my friends but I've been so scared to tell them. I'm scared they'll get mad and me and think I'm choosing wrestling over them.

"Yeah," Jon starts, he gets up from the bed and starts pacing around the room. "We could have a sleepover today with all of us because we've never done it before." Soon everyone is spewing off ideas.

"We could go camping," Maria adds, her attention finally off of my plush purple bear.

"And maybe go to Cedar Point," Kelcie says.

"And go to the new water park in Sandusky." Nick points out.

"We could go see some new movies." Grace asserts.

Soon enough everyone's said all their ideas and I'm the only one who hasn't said anything yet. If I wasn't going to Africa this summer I would have been the most excited of us all and probably would have contributed with the most ideas. That's probably why my friends stare at me. They know somethings up.

"Do you have anywhere you want to go to Lauren?" Isaiah asks me he unknowingly gives me this look that says open up and I can't help but listen. There's this sort of magnetism I feel with Isaiah that I can't feel with anyone else. He makes butterflies beat their wings like a hummingbird in my stomach. Every time he hugs me I have to remind myself that this isn't some fantastical dream but that this was my reality. I'm glad to know I'm spending my few minutes of reality with him.

"Well there is s-s-somewhere I was g-going but only a cer-certain amount of people can go," I say and instinctively look down at my shoes and bite my lip. I'm so nervous that I can't even bear to look them in their eyes to tell them. Beads of sweat are forming at the top of my forehead. Oh shit, this can not happen now.

I bite on my fingernails ripping them off one by one and spitting them onto my floor. I look up a couple of times to see my friends looking down at me with confused faces. My now stubs for fingernails dig into the skin seeping from my fishnet stockings. I scratch and scratch trying to find my words. "D-D-Don't get m-mad at me b-but..." I stop because I can feel tears erupting from my eyes. My nails are plunged into my skin and when I take them out all you see is scars and blood. And that was all I was. My breath quickens and now all I could think about was breathing. In and out. In and out. But was I breathing too fast or too slow? Could my heart keep up with this? Could I keep up? Was I dying? Am I dying? Noises were getting fainter and that's when I knew I was hyperventilating from a panic attack.

I couldn't have a panic attack. Not now. I could miss school. My mom could make me stay longer at home and I won't get to go to South Africa. I was terrified that things beyond me could be pulling me away from my dreams so fast and so hard. How could they? Why would they do this? My vision was blurry and I could hear next to nothing but I faintly saw my mother come in and reach for my inhaler. I can hear my friends shouting at me. As if yelling will suddenly revive me. It doesn't but I hear them and it only makes me want to reach out and hug them. I want to hold them in my arms and tell them that I'm fine and everything else is fine and that they don't need to worry. I want them to know that no matter what they are my everything and that I need them more than I need myself. If I could live off of their oxygen I would but in a way I already do.

I suck in the air of the inhaler, relying on it to replenish me. Tears fall from my eyes and land onto my jeans. I can't bear to look up from my lap and see my friends scared faces. I'd have to die before that happens.

I try to focus my attention on something else as the world becomes clear again. Well, as clear as it can be as I'm not wearing my glasses right now. I check the time. 6:59. I try to get to my feet but that is rendered useless because I end up feeling dizzy and falling back onto my bed. My head throbs and my heart is in a state of quick beats and slow thumps. I rely on my inhaler more to help me out of this state.

I want water and Tylenol but I can't ask for it because my words are as dry as my throat. The noises coming out of my mouth are only mere whimpers. I choke on my words and hidden air. I cough up phlegm which makes Angelina go into my bathroom and grab a tissue to get the phlegm off my hands. I try to thank her but the only thing I can manage is a grunt.

"I...I n-need w-w-water and t-t-ty-ty..." That's all I can manage to say, my words are croaks at best and I can't get through a single word. My mom understands me and walks out of the room to get the stuff. My friends walk out of the room their eyes set on the floor but I see Jon and Isaiah look up at. It melts my heart like butter that the people closest to me had to see me at my worst. I know I'm not perfect and I know I'll never be perfect but I never want them to see the terrible shit I go through. The look of worry on their faces tears me to shreds.

My dad comes to my bedside and holds me against him as I cry on his t-shirt. He rubs my back in circles and doesn't say a word. He lays his head on my shoulder and rubs his forehead on it. That was the thing that I most loved about my dad. He didn't try to soothe me with words and lie to me and say everything was going to be okay he just sat there with me and he let me cry. He says crying is the best way of letting all of your emotions out. He lets go of his hug and puts his hands on my shoulders.

"I remember when you were born, you came out all smiles. You loved everyone even though everyone didn't love you. I remember holding you for the first time and thinking 'I will never let go of you' and that's what I did. I remember when you were six and for some reason everything made you bust out crying. When the doctors got back to us and they told me you had depression and anxiety I got so scared. All I could think was 'How is the girl with the big bright smile the saddest person in the room?' That only made me want to hold you tighter." He holds onto me and I am sent to the comfortable place that is my dad's arms.

"When you were eight and you had your first seizure I thought you were dying and I was scared to lose another child. First Noah by a drunk driver running him over while he was just trying to ride his bike," He touches the necklace on his neck that holds Noah's ashes and I touch mine too. "I cried every night after he died because I felt like I failed as a father because I wasn't there to save him. Then you had your seizure and I thought that someone was taking one of my precious angels again. I held your hand as we were going to the hospital and I was there for you for those two days you had to stay at the hospital. I lost an opportunity to make money that day but I didn't want to lose the light in my life more."

"When I was certain that you wouldn't die from this seizure I got scared of other things. I was sure that you had epilepsy and I couldn't imagine how hard it would for your mom and me to raise you if that was true. Thankfully you didn't have epilepsy and instead had Mindset Switch Disorder. I remember when the doctors told me that I was scared. I thought it was like being bipolar was. One minute you're happy the next your spiraling out of control. Instead, you just switch from being in your childish state to your more mature state. I was thankful that it wasn't anything you couldn't handle. The headaches are temporary and the seizures only come once in a while. The one thing that still scares me now is thinking that one day your gonna leave our sight and it scares me that you aren't gonna be properly cared for. Who's gonna tell you to take your pills? Who's gonna keep an extra inhaler for you so if you forget your's you don't have to die from hyperventilating? That scares me but I have to learn that I have to let things take it's course because the situation is out of my hands now. I know this is probably one of the most exciting times in your life right now and you can't wait for it to begin but I just want to tell you that no matter what we're always here for you." He gives me a pat on the back and kisses my forehead before leaving the room.

I notice the glass of water and Tylenol on my bedside table and take two tablets and the water. I check the time again to see that it is 7:05. I make sure I didn't leave anything and head downstairs where my friends are waiting. They look on edge and try to pretend like everything's okay when they see me. I know my panic attack is on their minds and I hate that they had to see that side of me. They get up and walk outside to the bus stop. Liana, Elijah, my mom, and my dad are all getting in the van. I get in the middle seat and close the door.

My mom is holding her camera and waiting for me to come. Isaac is walking back up the stairs as I am walking down them. Isaac has already graduated and is in the college right next to the school. He doesn't go until 8:30 which is really lucky.

"W-why are you going up-upstairs if Tyler and Lori are still here? Aren't you supposed to watch them?" I ask Isaac as he walks up the stairs. He sighs and stops.

"They can watch themselves smartass." He says, flipping me off and continuing up the stairs. I loved Isaac he was so easy to joke with and wasn't too rough with his playing like Elijah was. He never tried to powerslam me into a pool. That might need a little explaining.

I walk outside and get into my dad's van and everyone looks at me instinctively. I give them a smile and my dad starts the ride. We drive to the bus stop and my mom records the whole ride the camera trained on me and my siblings which makes us all smile. We get to the bus stop where my friends are waiting and I get out of the van. I say I love you to my parents and my siblings and I can see my mom smiling as I walk away from the van. I catch up with my friends and we start walking and soon I can hear the van drive off.

We walk silently down the sidewalk with everyone looking down. They all look up to me occasionally but look down again. I sigh and say, "I'm fine o-okay you do-don't have to w-worry about me." They all look like they want to say something but they don't.

"There's some-something this summ-summer that came up and I'm j-just not ready to tell you but I will when I f-feel ready." Silence again. Then Jon mutters an 'okay' and although our natural flow of conversation isn't there it feels a little easier than the ultimate silence.

"Do you think they're going to bring in another bouncy house even though Sami popped one last year?" Nick asks and we all bust out laughing.

"Everybody told him not to poke it but he did." Jon pitches in.

"I just wanted to see what would happen." Mike makes fun of Sami by mocking how he talks.

Sami was a kid that went to our school that was made for the circus. He did the craziest and stupidest things all the time just so someone could laugh. He was a bit of an attention whore but we got along with him because he was Jon's best friend.

"Remember when you asked Mr. Shannon if you could rape somebody's hand because you read it in a book?" Maria reminds me and I turn away from the group.

"That was a pretty stu-stupid thing to say," I reply and everyone nods.

"I miss being in Mr. Shannon's class it was fun." Angelina brings up and we all start talking about our experiences in his class.

"I used to love when he would just decide to not teach math and would tell stories instead." Grace quips.

"Remember when he told us that he used to be a rebel in college?" Maria asks and I nod.

"He was really living on the wild side egging houses," I say back.

"I also used to like when he would give us apples and bananas," Mike replies.

"He really hoo-hooked us up tho'," I say. We all get into talking about stuff we did in sixth grade which get's all of us laughing.

"So what's up with your high school boyfriend?" Angelina asks with a sly smirk. My girl group of friends always liked poking fun at me because my boyfriend is a high schooler.

"Nothing that you n-need to kn-know," I reply and they all roll their eyes.

"Are you going to go to prom with him?" Grace asks and I can see that my boy group of friends are disinterested in the conversation. They speed walk in front of us and start talking about something else.

"I do-don't know. I mean I w-went to all the o-other dan-dances with him but I do-don't know about prom." I stutter over my words because inside I'm scared for the future. Being two years apart from each other means that one day we'll have to break up because he'll be 18. I dread to see that day come because I'm scared if I lose him once I'll lose him forever. We promised each other that once I was 18 we'd get back together but I can't say for sure if I believe that.

"That's the thing about dating older boys. You think every day they're gonna leave you for an older prettier girl. And maybe they will. And then you'll start high school heartbroken and you'll have to pass him in the halls every day. I'm not trying to scare you and say that he will leave you but I just don't want to see you get your heartbroken." Grace tells me and all I want to do is cry because in my heart I know she's telling the truth. People say things like a boulder falling on you or getting stabbed a million times is the worst pain to ever experience. They lied. The truth is the worst pain ever. All because it is a blank form of reality. It attacks your heart because you know there's no way to escape the truth. It'll come one day and it will hit you with a heart-stopping blow.

I keep my composure and manage not to cry as we get to school. Everyone is outside talking to their friends so that means that it's not time to go in yet. We meet up with some of our friends in the area where seventh graders are. Kelcie goes over to her group of friends and Grace, Maria, and Angelina talk together. I stay with Mike, Nick, and Jon.

"I'm s-s-s...surprised that you don't h-have a girlfriend Jon," I say and he looks at me in this weird way where I can't tell what he's thinking.

"I just don't I guess." He said with a shrug.

"My parents would freak if I had a girlfriend," Mike informed.

"That's why you hide it like Lauren." Nick states.

"Nick isn't going to get a girlfriend because he's 12," I responded.

He playfully shoved me and I punched him in the arm hard and he flinched.

"Damn you didn't have to hit me that hard," Nick said still rubbing his arm but I knew it didn't hurt that much because he was smiling.

"You-you know it did-didn't hurt you're faking it."

Nick flipped the bird at me as the doors started opening to let us in. I go straight to my homeroom which is my social studies teacher Mr. Sledge. He was bald and in his thirties and was by far the most fun teacher in the seventh grade. I see three kids drawing a picture of Mr. Sledge and writing Mr. Sledgehammer over it.

One of my classmates is on his computer typing stuff like 'Mr. Baldini' which was pretty funny. Kelcie, Grace, and Angelina come into the classroom because we all have the same homeroom.

We sit in our seats and we start talking about random things.

"Do you want to go to Hot Topic after school?" Kelcie asks and I nod with my head on the desk.

My friends talk about all the things they want to do and my classmates all goof-off and have fun. I'm staring out the window still thinking about my panic attack.

I can't believe that I let them see that happen. Now they're probably all worried about me. I hate when people worry about me. They start treating me differently. I hate when people treat me differently. I hate feeling different. I hate being different.

The bell rings signaling that school has started and for once I'm ready for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This shit was so long and I'm so sorry for that. I really wanted to give people the inside details of this girls life and I went a little overboard. If you finished this I thank you. This shit took so many weeks to do. This book has taken years and now I get to share it. Hope you like it.


	5. two-tommie

_**7:30 am** _

_**lauren's pov** _

_**———**_

**T** he morning announcements comes on and everyone sits in their seats and talks to each other quietly. I couldn't be bothered to have a conversation so I just keep to myself.

There were so many things that I did that annoyed me. I was annoyed with the way that I was antisocial. I was annoyed with the way that I talked. I was annoyed with all my anxieties. I wish I could just be a normal happy person. Why did it have to be me? Why?

"So as you know we kept what we were doing for the last day of school a secret but now you guys get to know." My teacher, Mr. Sledge, starts and I perk up. We've been waiting to hear what we'll be doing for our last day of school since the fourth quarter started.

"What we'll be doing for today is..." Everyone bangs on their desk, we're all on the edge of our seats as the answer is on the tip of Mr. Sledge's tongue. "Bounce World." He finally says and we all erupt into cheers. Everyone's high-fiving each other and talking about going there. I'm excited since Bounce World is really fun and you can bounce around all day.

"I can't believe we're going to Bounce World they said they didn't want to go there because 'someone might get hurt'" Kelcie says and we all nod.

"I'm excited because I've never been to Bounce World and I heard it's really fun." Maria chimes in, she has markers in her hands. I stare at her drawing in her sketchbook and smile. It's a picture of a queen and it's really good. Maria and Grace were really good drawers in our group and they always made cool art.

"Nice drawing." I reply and she smiles and says, "Thank you." When we're not arguing about something petty Maria can be really cool. I kinda hate how we fight. I hate that in my head I make her the toxic one. In reality, I'm the toxic one but I hate admitting it. I hate being the toxic one.

"I heard that Nathan wants to ask Kelcie out," Angelina says and I shake my head no.

"N-Nathan woul-wouldn't ask Kelcie out he does-doesn't like her." Kelcie agrees with me but I see that Angelina isn't too sure.

"You don't see how he looks at her on the soccer field," Angelina remarks.

"Probably be-be-because I'm too busy kic-kicking a ball in his face." I snicker.

"Has he said anything about me?" Kelcie asks, I just hoped that she wasn't asking because she likes him. Nathan is a jerk and the type of person to cheat on his girlfriend and I didn't want Kelcie to go through that.

"Well Justin told me that when he was talking to him about girls he wanted to date and he said you," Angelina says and I swear I saw Kelcie blush when she heard what Nathan said. I want to tell her to not date him but what would the point be she can do what she wants to do and I can't do anything about it. I feel like if I tell her she'll get mad at me and not be my friend anymore so I just choose to keep my mouth shut.

The bell rings meaning that homeroom is over. I walk to my next class, Math, with my least favorite teacher, Mrs. Conway. She was annoying and didn't teach us anything. She put on a movie for us to watch but I wasn't going to pay attention to it anyway. I just sat there thinking in my head.

If there was one thing I could change about myself it would be the way my mind works. I hate it. I hate the way it gives me seizures and panic attacks. I hate the way it thinks. I hate it. After being diagnosed with Mindset Switch Disorder all I crave is to be normal again.

I hate being so self-loathing but it's all I can think about. I don't want to be someone else but I really want to think like someone else.

Everyone wants to be different and unique but all I'm asking for is to be like everyone else. I want to be a happy smiling kid. Instead, I'm a disabled unhappy kid.

I wouldn't wish my disorder on anyone because I don't know if they could handle it like me. After a while, my seizures have become normal to me. I get about four of them a year and I always know when it's going to happen. I guess that's a perk but I don't know.

I notice that ten minutes had passed and I realize that I was in my head all that time. I'm a loser. Bottom of the barrel. Who spends ten minutes just listing off reasons why they're the worst? I guess that's just a me thing.

I decide to actually do something productive and started thinking of what my wrestling name should be. I hadn't given it much of a thought but it was probably a good idea to have a head start on it. I didn't want a gimmicky or stupid name so that narrowed things down. I didn't want to use my real name because Lauren Thompson didn't seem threatening. My middle name was cool but I don't know if it's enough.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Jon asks coming into my view. This wasn't even his class but because it was the last day of school anyone could do anything.

"I'm think-thinking of wrestling names," I say and Job cracks a smile at me. My friends and I were totally in love with wrestling.

"Cool can I help?"

"Yeah sure."

"Well, what do you have down right now?" Jon must have asked the question too loudly because I can hear Mrs. Conway shushing us. I get up and walk out of the room and go to the lounge area. I come out here only when I'm having a mental breakdown but it's a nice and quiet area too.

Jon sits beside me and stares at me for a while which makes me smile. To me, he was like an older brother who I could have fun and joke with.

"Well, I was thinking of a couple-couple of ideas. I could be La Rosa the f-f-fearless underdog lucha-l-luchadora. I would have a mask that would have all the-these bright colors and floral de-designs on it. I could be soaring through the air b-beating up bad guys."

I could see it now an upbeat theme song hits and the arena is draped in bright colors. I come out and the crowd is going wild for me. I slap fans hands and the fans cheer for me. I run down the ramp into the ring and get on the turnbuckle to do my signature pose. I'm a hero who's been beaten down but will always rise again to take revenge on the ones who wronged me.

"Or I could be Dom-Dominique the bad-badass trash-talking heel. I'd be the leader of my own stable and would chall-chall-challenge anyone to try and beat me."

A theme song with a tune that's menacing and cocky is the sound that fills the arena. You can hear a chorus of boos from a mile away. I strut down the ramp with a championship on my arm. I laugh at the haters and pose on the turnbuckle. I didn't take anything from anybody and I was sure to shut mouths up with my words and actions.

"Those are really cool ideas can I contribute one?" I nod my head yes and he flashes me a quick smile, "Well why don't you just be Tommie the anti-hero that everyone either loves or hates. You'd dominate the competition and amaze everyone with your amazing moves. The heels and the faces would both love you and everyone would be waiting for your next move to see which side you were on when really you're just in business for yourself."

Jon had a point. The one thing I love about wrestling is how personal it feels. It feels like the wrestlers are being their original selves and they can find themselves in wrestling. Wrestling feels like a 'me thing' and I could see myself in it. Everyone wouldn't be cheering for some character I was playing they would be cheering for me. They would be cheering for Tommie.

"You might be on to some-something," I reply and I see Maria coming out of the classroom and I can tell that it's time to go to Bounce World. I reach out my hand towards Jon and he accepts it. We walk back into first period together and I feel like I've discovered a whole new part of me.

I am Lauren Tommie Thompson. But from now on I'll be referred to as Tommie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hoped you liked this short little chapter I don't really feel like I could possibly write more for this and I feel like this is a pretty good place to stop. In the next chapter they're going to Bounce World and I'm thinking of what I should do there I don't want it to be just them having fun and no drama but like how much drama can you stir up with 13 year olds in the early 2000s. So yeah while I'm figuring hat out you guys can give me some ideas too. I'm open to anything. If you have questions you want me to answer about the book I'll look at them and answer them either in the comments or the chapter.


	6. three-nothing more, nothing less

**_8:00 am_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**W** e walk back into the classroom and everyone stares at our hands. I don't get why everyone thinks we're dating. We're just really good friends. He was like a brother to me. I was like a sister to him. Nothing more, nothing less.

"When the announcements come on we all will exit accordingly to the cafeteria to see which groups we're in. We should be called down at about 8:05." Mrs. Conway informs and from that moment forward I tune her out.

"Lauren, can you come here?" Angelina urges me as if something is wrong but I know her well enough to know that she's trying to pry answers out of me. She was pretty predictable.

I sit near her and words spill out of her mouth instantly. "So why were you and Jon talking in the lounge area? What were you talking about?" I laugh when all the questions spill out of her mouth and hold my hands up to motion me saying 'hold up'.

"It was really no-no-nothing we were talking about what my wrest-wrestling name sh-sh-should be and he was helping me," I say while placing a strand of my hair behind my ear.

"That's it?" She remarks in disbelief that there was no juicy gossip to talk about.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Well then why were you holding hands?" It feels like she's interrogating me and I don't like it. I scratch my nose and stifle a chuckle. I'm acting really awkwardly so it may seem to her like I'm hiding something.

"What's wrong with hold-holding my friend's hand I hold you guys' hands all the t-time." I can feel my hands getting sweaty and I didn't know why. I know what Angelina was alluding to. She was implying that there was something more between me and Jon. That I could possibly be cheating on Isaiah with him. It made me nervous that that thought could even enter her brain and be prominent enough to want to share the thought with me. Did it seem like we were boyfriend and girlfriend? To me, it didn't but to other people, it might have. Does Isaiah think there's more going on between me and Jon? Does anyone else think there's something between me and Jon and thought that it was big enough to tell Isaiah about it? What if he thinks I'm cheating on him? I would never cheat on him. He meant everything to me. I don't know what I'd do without him. Lose him once, lose him forever.

"I mean yeah you can like hold our hands it's just that when you hold a boy's hand and he's not your boyfriend it seems like something is going on between you two." Angelina's reply snaps me out of my thoughts and I'm almost thankful for it. I could feel beads of sweat collecting and I didn't understand why I was this afraid of someone thinking something that wasn't true.

"Look we're just friends nothing more, nothing less," I yell out it's loud enough that it seems like my voice has power in it but it's quiet enough that the only people who hear me are my friends. I would applaud myself for being able to say a full sentence without stuttering but I don't care right now I hear the announcements and I head straight for the cafeteria. I just want to calm down and get myself under control. I've had too many outbursts and I'm afraid that my friends won't like me anymore because of it.

Everyone comes into the cafeteria about two minutes later. I've been sitting at a table breathing to calm myself down. The first person I see come into the cafeteria is Jon and he looks like he's scared to even talk to me.

"Hey." He says and sits by me, all of my friends sit near us. Their heads are down on the table and I can see that Angelina feels bad for what she said.

"Hey," I reply, I bite my nail because I'm nervous as to what will happen next but Jon removes my thumb from my mouth. We smile at each other and just seeing him smile at me makes my heart feel like it can beat normally again.

"You shouldn't bite your nails." He mutters with a small laugh.

"You shouldn't t-tell me w-what to do." There's always this beat in our conversation that's not necessarily awkward but satisfying in a way as it gives me time to reflect that this is my best friend and I am so lucky to have him.

"You should talk to me over by the microwaves."

"May-Maybe I should." We walk over near the microwaves and we just stand around there looking at the ground and smiling like idiots.

"Are you okay?" He says after we had been standing there for a little too long.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"What was all that about anyway?"

"An-Angelina just was saying some s-s-stuff about when we were h-holding hands it was really n-nothing." I look at the floor because I feel like I don't want to see the look on his face right now.

He grabs my chin and faces me towards him and I'm almost too scared to make full eye contact with him. "What did she say?" I'm scared to even speak and every time I try it's a whisper of something.

"Come on you can tell me." He grabs my hands and rubs them and I take a deep breath and tell him what she said. To me, nobody cares about the small things like I do. The slightest things get me anxious and scared and I turn off because of those things. Assumptions and rumors especially scare me and I wouldn't want any made about me.

He doesn't say anything while I tell him what Angelina says. I tell him even more than he wants me to. I feel like I can tell him anything and he would understand me instantly. I'm feeling sorta relieved and my breath is quickened. Jon grabs my shoulders without saying anything and grabs me in a firm hug. I snuggle into his shoulder and I breathe in his scent. He smells like Irish Spring soap and laundry detergent and I kinda like that about him. It's humble in a way.

We go back to the table and I'm holding onto his arm. "I'm sorry for what I said it was rude to assume." Angelina apologizes and I just smile at her to say that I forgive her.

"Oh yeah, we're in Mr. Sledge's group," Nick informs us.

"All of us?" Jon asks.

"Yeah." Mike answers.

We go back to talking normally after that. We all talk about how excited we are to go to Bounce World. After every time our conversation pauses for one awkward second we bring it back and talk normally again. I liked that about my friends. That we could always be so close to each other no matter what. I never wanted to lose them but I might when I leave for Africa. I hope they aren't mad at me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter for the boys because I don't think I can write anymore. Most likely chapter 5 is when they get to Bounce World so look out for that chapter 4 is probably just gonna be them on the bus but you know imma fluff it up for y'all. I feel like I could have added this to chapter 2 or have chapter 4 and this added together but you know one step at a time. I'm sorry if this book seems a bit long winded I'm just trying to do my best.


	7. four-"platonic love"

**_8:13 am_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**T** he buses arrive and we exit the school to get to our bus. All of my friends are holding each other's hands and I end up holding Jon and Kelcie's hands. Jon's are kinda rough but their firm and easy to hold onto. Kelcie's hands are soft and smooth because she uses baby lotion. I do sometimes too so I can't blame her.

We all head for the back and thankfully we're first on the bus so we don't have to sit near anyone we don't want to sit with. Kelcie sits next to Angelina, Grace sits next to Maria, Nick sits next to Mike, and Jon and I sit across from them. I let Jon get the window seat so I can lay on his chest. He was like my big teddy bear sometimes and he gave me comfort.

I lace our fingers together and he rests his head on my shoulder. I smile and rub his knuckles. Everybody else files into the bus and me and my friends just talk in the back.

"Guess what I have?" Maria says and I roll my eyes playfully because everyone knows that no one ever answers that question.

"What?" I play along with it, I should start acting nicer to Maria before she unfriends me. I know I'm the problem but I don't want to be.

She pulls out a small handheld camera and I lightly chuckle.

"Why did you take that from my house?" I ask.

"So we can document our memories of course." She starts filming us all immediately.

"Lauren how does it feel for you and Jon to be named best Best Couple again." Maria questions sounding like a news reporter. For our school yearbook, we have certain categories that students can vote for their classmates to win. Best Couple is one of them. Jon and I won it last year too even though we weren't a couple then and we aren't a couple now. I also have won Best Eyes for the past two years even though girls like Alexis and Dory have beautiful shimmering blue eyes. Sometimes in class, I look at them for one second and then I'm instantly trapped in them like a black hole and I can't seem to focus. I guess beauty catches and keeps the eye of the beholder.

I clear my throat and put on my best impression of a seasoned actor pretending as if they care about winning their 400th award, "It is truly an honor I cannot believe that out of all of the other wonderful nominees I had the pleasure of winning. I would like to thank the Academy, my family, and my wonderful husband." I give him a small peck on the forehead and everyone laughs at my impression.

"Hey, you didn't stutter at all," Mike says and I brush the comment off. I had a bad stutter and sometimes I can speak full sentences but I knew my stutter wouldn't go away. That was the thing I hated the most. That it wouldn't go away. It was always there. Mocking me.

"You know it'll come back," I reply.

"Hey, but your getting better at speaking and your lisp isn't tripping you up." Nick tries to comfort me but I'm not giving in.

"That's because I have a partial lith-li-lisp." And here is my lisp always there to mess me up. It seems like every time I think of my stutter or my lisp it comes to trip me up. I hated that I couldn't speak normally. Everyone had to wait for me to finish my sentence and it just always bothered me that I was always the one to end conversations. Why me? Why?

"It'll get better trust me," Jon reassures me and I believe him. It always seems to me that something isn't real until someone I love and trust tells me it's true. I trust Jon because I love him. I'm glad to have him because he always made me feel safe and secure. I snuggle into his chest and he rubs my knuckles and places his hand on my back. The trip to Bounce World would take 45 minutes to get there and get back. That gave me time to nestle myself in Jon's arms and enjoy his warmness.

Jon sometimes gives me this warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach like Isaiah does. I think it's because I love both of them a lot. I hadn't told Isaiah that I love him yet but when the right moment comes I will. I don't know when exactly the right moment is but maybe I'll know when it happens. I'm expecting the words to flow out of my mouth like a cool breeze coming into my room from my window. I expect that my words will be so overwhelming and beautiful that tears cascade out of my eyes like a stream trickling into the sea. My sea will be filled with beautiful and harmless love. The purest form of any love, young love that tells itself to feel for a little younger, to stay in this moment for a little longer than a second. I expect to feel a certain warmness rise throughout my body that makes my cheeks and ears pink with sheer, requited love. The moment will be so magical that my eyes will turn into seas of jade fighting off the murky brown waters of self-hate and bringing in the amber glow of a love that will last forever. The speckles in my eyes will represent the future that shall come from our years of unwarranted and passionate love. I can't wait to be with Isaiah for the rest of my life. Being with him is one thing that I assure myself will happen in the future.

"Hey, are you asleep?" Jon asks and I stare at him with a smile and shake my head no.

"What were you thinking about?" He questions.

"H-How do you know I was th-thinking about something?" I reply.

"You have this look on your face like your deep in thought."

"Oh well, why does it m-matter what I'm thinking."

"Because I wanna know what's going on inside your head."

"Yeah, but why is it so i-important to you." I'm testing him and he must know it because he gives me a cheeky smile.

"I wanna explore your beautiful mind." I kinda blush when he says this. The last thing I would call my mind is beautiful. It was infested with anxiety rats and had depression termites. It was disgusting and depressing and terrible and all the other bad words in the book.

"My mind isn't be-beautiful."

"It may not be but I know you are and you can't dispute that because that's the cold hard truth." I was shocked at the lengths Jon would go to make me feel good about myself. He really cared about me. Isaiah always said stuff like that but he never made me feel beautiful because he could say a million words but none of them would feel all that real because I didn't feel them too. Jon made me feel them, he made me breathe them, taste them, smell them. I was getting validation and all I wanted was more.

"If I'm so beautiful t-th-then tell me how b-beautiful I am." I wondered how far he would go would he just hit the shoreline or would he plunge himself into the deep blue seas of my heart.

"I don't know how to start but I'll go from top to bottom I guess. Your hair is as soft as a cloud and it's like the one valley we found. I want to run through the hills and valleys of your head picking up sunflowers of your beauty. Your smile is so bright they can see it from space and I know that from every time you smile at me everything is going to be okay. Your eyes are like emeralds that hide in the dark to afraid to show their beauty but one day they will come out and show their beauty off for everyone's pleasure. I love it when you place your hair behind your hair and sometimes I want to kiss your ear after you do that and I want to trace the outline of it. I love placing my arms around your body because just your touch makes me feel safe and reassures me that I'll always have someone by my side. I love that you can confidently be yourself but say your the worst. If the worst were you then everyone else must fall into line behind you. If your a 0 then everyone else is in the negatives. Every time you stutter I don't think it's annoying I think about you caring about your words so much that you can barely say them right. That's how I feel about you sometimes. Your so much that I think that I'm so little. I don't deserve to be friends with someone so wonderful. I can't imagine why you hate yourself when I think about you as the most wonderful person I've ever meant. These are my words, not anyone else's. This is how I feel about you. And if you don't believe me then I don't know what I can do but tell you over and over again that you mean so much to me."

I'm so overwhelmed by his words that I don't know what to say I hold him tightly and kiss him on the cheek. I don't know what else to say to him so I ask him one simple question. "Do you love me?" The question to him seems easy because he immediately responds with "Yes." and I hold him tighter than I ever have. I know I have someone who will always stay by my side. Someone who will always be there for me. Someone who loves me as I love them. In a platonic way of course, because this was my best friend, my brother, and he would always be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ain't gone lie I'm really proud of this chapter. I feel like I outdid myself. Imma give myself a pat on the back. I was thinking of doing this chapter in Jon's pov but I thought it was a little to early to do all that. Do y'all wanna see a chapter in his pov. Let me know. Next chapter bouta pop off so get ready for it.


	8. five-hairy balls

**_9:01 am_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**W** e finally, arrive at Bounce World and I'm not gonna lie the bus ride wore me out. I fell asleep to Jon stroking my hair. He's so soft and gentle and I wouldn't mind melting into him. I try to wake him up but he wouldn't get up for anything. I decided to make him wake up in a different way.

I plant a kiss on his forehead but he still wouldn't get up. I trail my kisses down to his cheek but he was still asleep. I kiss his chin and get all the way down to his neck. I kiss him right next to his collarbone and I hear him groan and he gets up. I laugh at him and say, "Good morning sleepyhead." I say and he gives me a half-smile and rubs my neck.

I look at my friends and they all have weird looks on their faces and I know they look like that because of how close Jon and I are getting. I know that it's kind of weird to be this close to your best friend but honestly, I don't care. I'm happy and I feel like we have a bond that will last forever.

We all file out of the bus and walk towards the building. "Are you sure of the moves your making. I'm not saying this to be mean or scare you I just want to make sure you know what you're doing." I knew Grace was looking out for me but I was confident that what I was doing wasn't wrong. It was the opposite of wrong. It was a good decision. The best decision. If I leave for Africa thinking one thing the thing I'll think about is that I'm glad that Jon and I spent time strengthening our bond.

"I'm all in on this one," I reassure and all she does is give me a pat on the back. For the first time in forever, I felt confident in something. Confident in a connection. I hadn't felt this way since Isaiah and I got together. It felt good to be confident again. Confidence is something I sorely need.

We walk into Bounce World and we're met by colors and trampolines galore. I want to run off and start having fun right away but we have to stay by Mr. Sledge to get checked in before we can go have fun. I wait over near Mike, Nick, and Kelcie to pass the time.

"You know I never thought they would bring us near anywhere where things can get popped again after what Sami did but hey everybody makes mistakes," Mike says.

"Everyone says it's a mistake until his parents had to pay $200 for it." Nick remarks and we all chuckle.

"I can j-just feel the pain of an a-ass whooping." I retort and everyone laughs.

"No, he probably just had to do a lot of chores you know, wash the dishes, take out the trash, redye his mom's hair because she's afraid of looking old. You know the usual." Nick replied and we all giggled.

"Remember when she came to the parent-teacher conference and she tried to say that she was 25," Kelcie added.

"Try 45." I voiced.

"Do you guys remember what DeeDee said to Mrs. Conway when we all found out she was married to Mr. Conway?" Mike asks.

"She wasn't the only one who had balls," Nick mentioned.

"'H-How can you be m-married to him when he's always scratch-ing his balls. I don't even want to touch him much less be married to him.'" I recite what DeeDee said.

"I bet two days of detention was worth it," Kelcie suggested.

"Re-Remember the names we had for him though," I question.

"Hot Pants." Mike answers.

"Hairy Balls," Nick responds.

"Antsy," Kelcie replies.

"Ant Hill," I say.

"Fire Ants."

"Red Ants."

"STD," Kelcie responds and I burst out laughing.

"Who call-ed him that," I asked.

"I don't know I made it up on the spot."

"I couldn't even make that up and I'm supposed to be the comedian." Nick pouts but he has a smile on his face so we know he's not serious.

"Hey, I might be coming for your job you never know."

I see that our group is moving so I signal that we're going and we catch up with the rest of our group. "Hey, y'all," Jon says when we all join up with everyone. I put my arm on his shoulder and lean my head on it. We walk to a table and all sit around it. Grace led us all here and we were wondering why. "Why are we here?" Kelcie asks.

"Dang everybody, calm down I was just gonna ask if you guys wanted to eat first, play at the arcade, or go jump dang I can't do nothin' without y'all breathing down my neck." To anyone else, it would look like Grace has an attitude but we all know she's just playing because she rolls her eyes while she's talking.

"Let's all split into groups then," Maria suggested and we all agreed.

"You w-would be the one to s-say that," I said sarcastically.

I went with the group that was jumping first which consisted of me, Jon, and Kelcie. We walk over to the area of trampolines and I immediately start jumping and flipping around. I do a backflip and I can hear 'oohs and ahhs'. I keep jumping and jumping until I feel arms wrap around my waist and lift me into a suplex. I know it's Jon that does this because I can see Kelcie taking the role of referee now. He goes for the pin but I kick out at one.

I get up and grab him in a headlock and irish whip him into a clothesline. I prepare to do a moonsault on him but he grabs my legs into an ankle lock trying to make me tap. Kelcie asks me if I give up but I say no. I get out of the submission and do a hurricanrana on him and pin him only to get a two count. I beat him down with a couple of punches and kicks and do a moonsault to get a three count which makes me the winner.

"And here is your Undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Lauren," Kelcie announces and I hold my fists in the air. Jon looks up and me and gives me a high-five and I smile. "Her wrestling names Tommie," Jon says and I look at him. "What?" Kelcie asks and I don't know why but I get kinda nervous because of their interaction. I don't know why but talking about things my friends don't already know makes me feel weird and right now all I can do is have this weird feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

"Well, we kinda decided together that her wrestling name would be Tommie because her middle name is kinda cool," Jon explains and for a split second I'm super anxious as to what Kelcie thinks about it but then the anxious feeling goes away because I can tell that she likes it.

"I like it, I always liked your middle name it's super simple but it's cool," Kelcie responds and I give her a big smile. My parents gave me my middle name because when my mother was pregnant with me she swore I was a boy because her pregnancy with me was like her pregnancies with my brothers. They had prepared for me by getting all my stuff ready which included boy clothes and blue things. When I was born my parents weren't disappointed, not at all. They wanted a girl they could take care of and it would be their first girl together, they were more or less surprised though. So in the regard of me being raised both in a feminine and masculine light they made my first name inherently feminine, Lauren, and my middle kinda masculine, Tommie, I reflect both femininity and masculinity and I was quite proud of that. Some people would say that makes me gay or trans but I didn't see it that way. I saw it as me being a representative of women and men. What was so wrong with that?

We continued bouncing and having fun talking together about random things. I liked that our conversations could always flow so naturally and that they would always never miss a beat even if someone threatened it. It made me happy to have friends I could so easily talk to. I tried to do another backflip but while I was coming down I accidentally landed on Jon. I bumped my head on his shoulder and we both ended up laughing at it.

"Is that your new finishing move?" He sarcastically asks and I give him a light shove. "What would it even be called? The Takedown?" I question and he just shakes his head to say that he doesn't know. "You guys ready to get food?" Kelcie asks and we both nod. Jumping around made me pretty hungry.

We walk back to the see two pizzas on the table the first box has two slices left. I instinctively grab the two slices and look at the note Grace left on the second pizza box. _You can't take more than two slices there are only 16 slices for all of us._ I pout a little because I was hoping that I could get at least four pieces. I sit down and eat my two slices.

"Are we g-going to the ar-arcade after this?" I ask already finished with my first slice. They don't respond instead they just nodding and I end up finishing my second slice pretty quickly. I could probably eat a food eating contest if I was serious enough. I see that Jon is also done and wanting to get another slice like I am but unlike him I have self-control.

"How are you guys done already?" Kelcie says just finishing her first slice. We chuckle but were obviously still hungry and we want more.

"I-I'm gonna go get a d-drink you wanna c-come with?" I ask and he joins me as we walk to go get drinks. He picks up my cup and hands it to me and I fill up my cup with Sprite. He looks at me with a weird face and I return it.

"No ice?" He questions while filling his cup up with ice.

"Yeah, it ruin-ruins the fla-flavor of the pop if you leave it in too long. It'll taste all w-watery." He gets Pepsi and I give him a lid to put on his cup. I try to put the lid on my but I can't really get it on and I have to have Jon put it on for me. "What would you do without me?"

"Th-ings that people w-wouldn't norm-ally do?" I inquire and he smiles at me and we walk back to the table. We sip on our pops and all sit back and chill for a while. Kelcie leaves from the table to use the bathroom so it's just me and Jon.

"You know what would make this day even better." Jon starts and I roll my eyes. Everyone knows that answering stuff like that was pointless but I always play along with it. "Being killed by a ma-machete wield-ing killer?" I say with a small smile and he rolls his eyes.

"No one of those pretzels they have." That's all he wanted. A pretzel. I had about five dollars on me so I could probably get a pretzel for us. "Th-at's all you want. A pretzel. I c-could buy us one." I remark and Jon's eyes light up. Fat ass. He was always looking to get a free meal and here I was giving it to him. Maybe this was his plan all along. Rope me into giving him everything he wants. Well, he's got me where he wants me.

We both get up again to go get the pretzel. We have to wait for a toddler and his mother to make up their mind on what they want. After waiting three pretty boring minutes it's our turn. Suddenly my mouth turns dry and I forget everything I was going to say.

"What would you both like?" The person behind the counter asks and I'm unable to answer him because this big anxiety ball has taken over me and sewed my mouth shut. Luckily Jon comes to my rescue and orders the pretzel for me and for that I smile at him to thank him. I give him the money to give to the cashier and we wait for the pretzel to arrive.

We get our pretzel and I can already see Jon's mouth watering. I seem to have enough courage to say thank you to the person and we walk out of there and we walk back to our table. I sit down and tear the pretzel in half and give Jon his piece. "Th-Thanks," I mutter and then bite into the pretzel. I hated that Jon had to help me speak. I look like a complete fool not being able to say anything.

"No problem, you know I'll always help you." He replies between bites of his pretzel. He gives me a smile full of food and I shove him lightly. "K-Keep your food in your mouth." I tease with a chuckle. Jon sticks out his tongue after swallowing and I roll my eyes. He scoots closer to me and before I know it he starts tickling me. I burst out in a fit of laughter and when he stops I'm in a ball of myself trying to calm myself down.

"At l-least let m-me fin-finish my f-f-food be-before I die." I'm a stuttering and laughing mess after what Jon's done to me. I eat the rest of my pretzel and rub my belly. I see Kelcie come back to the table with Nathan, Justin, Angelina, Maria, and Grace behind her. "What's up K-Dog?" Jon remarks referencing the group of people.

Kelcie scrunches up her face at the nickname. Jon always calls her that because he likes to tease her. He likes to tease everyone generally. "Anyway...I just wanted to ask you guys if you wanted to play spin the bottle with us." At that moment I almost regurgitated my food. "Spin the what?" I responded perplexed at the fact that Kelcie would ask if I wanted to play spin the bottle even though I have a boyfriend.

"You don't have to play you can watch if you want." She reassures and I roll my eyes but I nod. "Okay, I'll come to watch. It b-better be fun." I grab Jon's hand and walk with Kelcie to wherever we were going. "How do you know I wanted to be apart of this?" Jon retorted and I rolled my eyes again. "W-Where were you g-gonna go? It's not like you can go j-jump with Mike and Nick t-that w-would be a b-bigger mis-mistake than Sami popping the bouncy house. Your guts would be e-everywhere." He sighs but he knows I'm right.

We end up going into this lounge area behind all of the trampolines. I sit on a couch next to Grace and Maria who are both not playing too. Grace is not playing because she doesn't like games like this and because she hasn't had her first kiss yet. Maria isn't playing because she's lesbian a fact that many people like to rudely repeat to her.

Nathan, Justin, Alexis, Russell, Kelcie, and Angelina all sit in a circle a ketchup bottle in the middle. Nathan spins first and lands on Russell. "Hell naw that's gay I'm goin' again." I roll my eyes and look over to Maria and she also is agitated at what Nathan says but she doesn't say anything.

On his second try, Nathan gets Angelina and his face scrunches up in disgust. Angelina returns the sentiment. Angelina ends up giving Nathan a dry kiss on his pale cheek and they both gag in their mouths. Justin goes next and gets Angelina and I can see that Angelina is excited to kiss Justin. I don't really have a problem with Justin he was kind of annoying and he was always in people's business but he was okay I guess. Their kiss is thirty seconds full of vanilla. It wasn't spicy or cute for that matter it was just boring and vanilla. Just like I imagined their relationship to be.

Alexis gets Angelina and Kelcie groans. "Dang, are y'all all tryna kiss Angelina?" She complains. Alexis doesn't look like she wants to kiss Angelina on the cheek and there was no way she could get out of it. "I don't want to kiss Angelina," Alexis argues, there was nothing wrong with Angelina she was a bit self-centered and she was bigger than the other girls but I didn't see much problem with her. People just don't like her that much I guess.

"Well you got to kiss someone," Nathan replies and then he looks over at me as I'm laying on Jon's shoulder, my arms folded. "Why don't you kiss Lauren?" Nathan suggests and I perk up. "Why me?" I responded. Everyone turns their full attention to me and weirdly I don't have a problem with it.

"Well, you have a boyfriend so it should be fine for a girl to kiss you on the cheek. Unless there is a problem that you have about it." Nathan replied and so badly I wanted to punch him. I hated how subtly he was able to twist the situation and make it seem alright. Does it look like I'm okay with people kissing me on the cheek when I don't want them to? But since Alexis would be the one to do it so it was cool. "Fine," I say complying with him. Alexis grabs my chin and gives me a nice peck on my cheek. To everyone else, it might seem like nothing but to me, it felt like something.

There was a spark when she kissed me. This electricity that was undeniable. My cheek felt like a heartbeat and it felt like all sins I've committed have been forgiven. I felt like the moisture from my body has all transferred to my cheek and that was the sole place on my body where I could breathe. I didn't know why I felt this way but it felt good.

The game resumed and I was able to get out of the trance Alexis but on me. I stared at her for the rest of the game but made sure that I wasn't staring too hard so Nathan couldn't point it out and accuse me of being gay. Then I realized what Nathan had said earlier. 'Unless there is a problem that you have about it.' What was that supposed to mean? It sounded like he was subtly saying that there was more to the situation. Nobody but me seemed to notice it and I kind of hated that nobody else was able to point it out. That's why Nathan annoyed me so much, always talking shit about people when all he was was white trash. He really fucking annoyed me.

Russell kissed Kelcie on the cheek and it was finally her turn. She spinned the bottle and I could tell that she was trying to land on Nathan and she got her wish when it did. In my head, I was groaning so hard. Maybe Nathan did like her and that was cool or whatever but I didn't think that Kelcie liked Nathan back. After the shit, he put me and Kelcie through she was gonna kiss him. In a way, I felt betrayed and I wanted to tell her to not kiss him because he just might be the worst person to grace this Earth but it would have been inappropriate if I did so. I just kept my mouth shut like I always do.

Watching my best friend kiss one of my worst enemies was a disgusting sight. Not only did it go on for too long but they were kissing really sloppily and I think I saw Nathan put his tongue in her mouth. At that moment I wanted to throw up everything I ate in the past week. The sight upset my stomach so much and I didn't know how much I could take. Luckily for me, Grace saved me and suggested that we should go to the arcade before we have to leave to go back to school. Jon, Grace, Maria, and I all leave to go to the arcade and I'm still left rolling my eyes at what just happened.

"That was disgusting on so many levels." Grace remarks and we all agree with her.

"I don't k-know if I'm the o-only one but I feel kinda b-betray-ed by Kelcie," I confess.

"Yeah after all the times Nathan was rude to you guys and the time he called DJ the F word I can't believe she would still kiss him." Grace replies.

"I w-want to say some-something to her but l-like I'm sc-scared she's not g-gonna like me b-because of it."

"Hey from someone who also suffers from anxiety you can't let fear overtake you. If you've got something to say to her and it's important then you should say it. Don't let fear stop you from telling the truth." Maria consoles and I hug her.

She was right. I shouldn't live in fear of what people will think and I should just tell the truth because locking the truth away will only make it less honest. I feel like telling Kelcie how I feel is important but I don't want it to jeopardize our relationship. But all I can do for the moment is hope that she won't blow it out of proportion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel good about this chapter and I feel like I created some good drama. I feel like it's good to have drama that the main character isn't fully like based in because it gives me a good chance to develop her feelings about such situations. After looking into things I'm expecting that this singular day is gonna be spread into about ten chapters. In my case probably more. I know the next chapter is gonna be them at the arcade and is gonna be a fun little filler chapter to flesh things out a bit more. Most likely them leaving Bounce World will be in the sixth chapter and if not the seventh chapter because I don't want this going on for too long. My guess they've probably been there for two hours which means the time is probably around 11. And then they'll leave at about 12:30 so they can get early release. Chapter seven will include some stuff that happens on the bus but it isn't going to include too much of the bus ride because I feel like that would be boring. I know it's gonna include them leaving school to get ready for their sleep over that will probably start in chapter eight or nine. And the big blowup might be in chapter ten or eleven. I feel like I spaced the day out a little too much between chapters but overall I'm cool with it. Sorry for the long note I had a lot of ideas to express.


	9. six-dirty dan and pinhead larry

**_11:08 am_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**W** e walk over to the man behind the counter to get our tokens and then realize that we don't have the card that says that we can get tokens free. "Does anyone have the card?" Jon asks and I sigh, if we have to go on a wild goose chase to find the card then I'm gonna go insane.

"Don't worry I got the card," Grace says and I sigh in relief. I realize that I've done a lot of sighing and eye-rolling today and it's probably from all the stress this day has put me through. I don't know why but I've been kinda on edge all day and, though, all the fun I've had has made me kind of forget the stress there's always something that brings me back to that stressful mood.

We all get 100 tokens each that is put in a baggie. We walk around the arcade as the bright lights bounce off of us. There are so many things to do but in a way so little time. We can do anything but we're stuck looking for a good three minutes, overwhelmed by choice. I finally decide to play skeeball with Jon. We both start and I instantly start off better than Jon by landing my ball in the 2,000 point hole. He gets the 1,000 point hole and I tease him.

My next turn as I'm aiming to get my ball into the 2,000 point hole Jon throws me off my game by getting behind me. He holds my waist in his hands and his head is on my shoulder. I can feel his hot breath on my ear and for some reason, I get all hot because of this. My body goes all numb and my mind goes to mush as Jon doesn't move from his position. "Come on try." He whispers in my ear and my ear tingles because of it. I swallow all of the thoughts down and try and focus on my goal. I wind my arm back and sink my shot into the 2,000 point hole. With that out of the way, I take a breath of relief and Jon applauds me. I give him a small smirk and his next shot lands in the 3,000 point hole which tied us.

My next shot lands into the 3,000 point hole and I smirk at Jon. "Beat that." I challenge. And he returns my confidence with a smirk of his own. "Oh, I will." He easily lands his ball in the 4,000 point hole and gives me a cheesy grin. I aim for the 5,000 point hole but end up getting the 1,000 point hole and I pout. No way was I losing this round to Jon he's never gonna stop bragging if he wins. I only have one ball left and Jon looks like he's aiming for the 5,000 point hole which he could probably get.

I get behind him as he did to me. I'm shorter than him so I have to kind of stand on my tippy toes to reach his head. My hands move around his stomach and I can see him slowly unravel. As he's trying to make the shot I see this as my time to strike and I plant a kiss on his collarbone which makes him shiver and when he goes for the shot he misses the holes completely and gets 0 points. I laugh and blow a kiss to him as I can see him run his neck with an indescribable face.

I focus my next shot in the 5,000 point hole and when I sink it I jump up in victory and watch as Jon only gets his in the 3,000 point hole. I instantly start bragging about how much better at the game I am than him and he just gives me a small smile. To anyone else he might look like he's grieving from his loss but I know something else is on his mind. I don't want to pry though, cause that's not my thing so I just celebrate my victory silently.

We play another game of skeeball and this time Jon wins we came to a tie when we both landed in the 25,000 point hole but I lose when I threw mine in the 4,000 point hole and he landed in the 5,000 point hole. We grab our tickets and put them in our baggies along with our tokens. "You w-wanna put t-together our tick-tickets to get a big prize?" I questioned. He nods as we get to the air hockey table. Some kids are already playing the game so we have to wait for them to finish up so we can play. Good thing they were almost done so we didn't have to wait for long.

To make up for the wait I thought it would be good to have a conversation. Or try to have one. "You okay?" I ask and Jon looks sorta off-put by me asking. "Why are you asking?" He retorts and I get kinda upset at his response. "You s-seem kinda off." His eyes dart from everywhere but my face. He looks straight ahead never once sparing a glance at me when he responds. "I guess you just put me on edge." See there are two ways people can take this.

You can respond with 'Well what put you on edge? Why did it put you on edge?' Now this a pretty standard response and there's nothing wrong with it but as an experienced conversator, people don't like talking about their feelings until they feel it's right. I don't think Jon wants to talk about his feelings right now much less anytime since he isn't a touchy-feely guy.

Or you could respond with 'Oh did I really put you on edge. Well, maybe I should put you on edge even more.' This is one that most don't use because in most settings it would probably be inappropriate. In my case, it might work but it might also backfire and make things more awkward. I can't stay in silence so I'm gonna respond in the way I think is right.

"I'm s-sorry I p-put you on edge," I mutter the little kids finish their game and we go to play. I put 10 tokens in it and the game on my side starts up. Jon does the same and grabs the puck and tries to score on me but I won't let him easily.

"It isn't your fault you couldn't possibly know," Jon reassures as I try to score on him but he blocks. "S-So everything's cool?" I hit the puck and it sails past the table into Jon's goal. Me 1, Jon 0. He sighs and gets the puck out of the pocket and hits the puck with force but I won't back down. We're both in total competitive mode.

"Of course everything's cool I even kind of liked it," Jon says which made me happy. I'm glad there wasn't anything wrong between us and we could put that behind us and have fun. "W-Well maybe I need to p-put you on edge even more," I suggest and Jon smiles at me with his eyes squinted which I thought was really cute. Being Jon's friend made me kind of forget how cute he was.

I forgot how cute it was when his hair would fall in his eyes. I forgot how cute it was when he would scratch his neck and then yawn afterward. I forgot how cute it was when he would squint and smile. I forgot how cute it was when he would run his hands through his hair. Everyone always tells me that the hottest guy in school is my best friend but I never really noticed it until I looked at his cute mannerisms.

He scored on me and I huffed and got the puck and tried scoring on him from the side but he blocked it effortlessly. "Maybe sometime I should put you on edge." Jon remarks and I lose all consciousness at once. He scores on me but I don't care because all I can focus on is what he said. My tongue moves throughout my mouth as I try to comprehend what he said but I can't at all so I just try to forget it. "You can try," I reply with as much confidence as I can muster but I'm still stuck on what he said.

I try to focus my attention on the game at hand and get 4 points to Jon's 5. I'm losing at one of my favorite games and I can't stand it at all. I try my best and we end up with a 6-6 tie. The final point will be the ultimatum. We're in a heated back and forth battle and Jon hits the puck with such force that I don't know if I can block it. I place my hand in front of the goal and prevented the puck from entering the goal. I place the puck back on the table with one goal in mind. Hitting it in the goal.

"You cheater," Jon says as I hit the puck into the goal which causes me to win the game. I ignore him and in irony I sing 'I lie, I cheat, I steal' while dancing around Jon. He has a snooty smirk on his face but I know he wants to laugh at my antics. "How d-dare you acc-accuse Latino Heat of such acc-accusations." I retort and he snickers.

"How many tokens you got left?" Jon asks and I look at him with a face full of agitation. "D-Do you really think I'm gonna d-dump them out and c-count them?" My question is more of a statement but I wanted to test if he was serious or not. He shuts up with a face that says 'damn okay' which I find funny.

"If you r-really want to kn-know we have 80 t-tokens left."

"Well, we have a lot more games to play if we want a good prize," Jon replies and I smile at him. We end up playing Pacman, Space Invaders, Dance Dance Revolution, Mortal Combat, Street Fighter, Need For Speed, and Guitar Freaks. We got a lot of tickets from Need For Speed because Jon finished first in all three races and did it in record time and to my credit, I absolutely shredded on Guitar Freaks getting number 5 on the high scores list. I typed in Tommie and out of the corner of my eye I can see Jon smile.

"So that's your brand now?" He says and I give him a small smile. "Guess so," I respond. "I like it, it fits you." And for once in my life, I feel like I have a definitive identity that I was proud of. I wasn't the disabled kid. I was Tommie.

We walked to a game called Zombie Shootout that required ten tokens to play. We had ten tokens so this was probably gonna be out last game. We took our ten tokens out of our baggies which was stuffed with tickets and we slid the tokens into the game and then pressed start. We grabbed the guns and got into ready position. Zombies lunged at us but we shot them all down as our characters moved through the house. A zombie popped out of nowhere which kinda scared me but I shot them.

Several more zombies later and we had progressed into level five of the game. Zombies sprang from everywhere and we had to be quick about shooting them. Though they were quick we were able to get them. I nearly got taken out when a zombie was holding onto my leg as three others surrounded me. We progressed farther and farther into the game and ended up getting as far as level 15. It was getting harder and harder and I didn't know if I could keep up with all the zombies that were clawing at me.

After I thought it couldn't get harder I reached level 20. It was the last level and included all kinds of zombies that were trying to get me. There were surrounding me and I had only seconds to shoot them all down. Zombies were coming everywhere. They were even coming from the ceiling and behind me. I narrowly escaped with my life and ended up at the final boss. Not only did you have to deplete the life bar of the giant zombie but you had to defend yourself from their attacks. My arm ached from holding the gun up and my fingers burned but I managed to kill the Zombie King.

I was rewarded with 1,000 tickets and so was Jon who too had finished. "Well if it isn't Dirty Dan and Pinhead Larry." I hear and then see Maria with the camera in her hand. I set down my gun and Maria turns the camera off. "W-Were you f-filming this w-whole time?" The thought of someone filming me without me knowing got me all flustered.

"Well I need footage to show the best years of our lives and I couldn't help but to capture this adorable sight." She says it in a way that's condescending but you don't get mad at her because she's just lightly teasing us. I rolled my eyes playfully and took the camera from her.

"Don't e-ever film me w-without my per-permission ever again." I playfully threaten I look like I'm angry but behind my grimace is a smile. Maria returns it and retorts, "I'll heed your warning." I give the camera back to her and she goes off to find Grace.

We took our tickets to the ticket counter and after 15 long minutes of putting the tickets in the ticket counter, we finally got out the sum. We had both amassed about 4,000 tickets together. We high fived and walked over to the counter and looked at all of the prizes that they had. Jon and I stared at a big pink teddy bear hanging up high on the wall.

"Can we get that bear," Jon says and the guy gets it and hands it to me. I bury my face in the soft plush of the bear and smile at Jon. I can't believe he would give me this bear. Jon was the best. "And then I want two of those cards and the blue raspberry Ring Pop." He hands me a card and then grabs my hand and pulls me over to a corner.

"W-What are you, d-doing Jon."

"I'm really glad that we uh...were able to have fun together today. I feel closer to you than I've ever felt. And well I know this is like kind of cheesy but it kinda sounded cool in my head." Jon's speech confused me so much but then I saw him get on one knee and hold the Ring Pop up to me. My jaw dropped in sheer shock and my heart quickened. Was Jon doing what I think he was doing?

"Lauren Tommie Thompson will you be my best friend forever?" I feel like I've answered that question in my head a million times but it felt good to say it out loud. I practically scream yes and he slides the ring on my finger and I kiss him on the forehead. We embrace and my head rests on his shoulder, in this moment and this moment only everything is perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lowkey want to write more but I feel like I wrote so much and that what I want to put in can wait. So next chapter is basically gonna include a conversation between Maria and Tommie, a bit of the bus ride back, them leaving school, and preparing for the sleepover. I've been waiting for the right moment to introduce someone else's pov but I don't know when it'll be right. Give me some ideas of how I can incorporate new povs and still stuck to the plot.


	10. seven-sit the fuck down

**_12:03 pm_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**W** e're all sitting around the table. Jon and I are eating ice creams. The card he got was one that said you could get one free thing from the food shack. We give each other bites of our ice cream. I got strawberry and he got cookie dough. Mike and Nick have finally shown up. Apparently, they got caught up in the spin the bottle game but left when Nathan and Kelcie got a little too close. When Nick told me what happened I could tell that he was hurt by it. It was kind of an open secret that Nick liked Kelcie and seeing her with Nathan must have devastated him.

The events of today roll through my head like a movie from a panic attack to the finding of a new identity to a betrayal, today has been one hell of a day. And it wasn't ending anytime soon. More and more time seemed to be added to it instead. One moment I go back to but I can't find out why is when Alexis kissed me on the cheek. I don't know why the moment enraptured me as much as it did but I can never seem to get it out of my head.

I didn't know why I felt this way about it but in a way, it felt good. It was like a relief of some sort. For all the boy trouble I had, it was nice to have a girl on my mind. I wanted to know why Alexis was on my mind and I had to find out why and there was only one person I could go to.

"Maria c-can I t-talk to you?" I bite on the plastic spoon in my mouth. "Yeah." She agrees and we go to a different table.

We sit on opposite sides and I focus on my hands. I fidgeted around until I could get my words straight. "Uh...so th-the rea-reason I wanted to t-talk to you is b-b-because I l-like w-wanted to know w-when you f-first l-like l-like uh...rea-realized you liked g-girls." I don't know why a sentence I was just thinking about was now so hard for me to say. I didn't know why I just couldn't say something outright instead of tripping over every word.

"Oh...okay well it was in fifth grade when this boy like told me he liked me but I felt nothing for him. I then kinda like realized that I didn't like any of the boys and I had actually liked my best friend Audrey. She didn't take me telling her I liked her well but that was the first time I like realized. If you don't mind me asking why do you want to know?" There it is the question. Why do you want to know? Well, why do you think I want to know? Why do I have to have a reason to ask? Can't I just ask for the sake of asking?

"Just w-wanted to kn-know I g-guess," I responded and she gives me a thin-lipped smile. We go back to the table and I finish up my ice cream. Everyone is chatting but I sit back and digested everything Maria said. I still liked boys, that was for sure. I knew Isaiah made me feel like fireworks were going off in my stomach and Jon makes me want to crumple up into rubble.

I was always insanely jealous of how beautiful some girls were but did that mean I liked them. I know I didn't like Grace I mean she's my best friend. Kelcie is my twin so I don't think I can like her any other way. Maria and Angelina and I aren't that close for me to like them like that so that base was covered. But did I like Alexis? I mean she made me feel some type of way but in comparison to say a kiss on the cheek from Isaiah or Jon it was nothing. How they made me feel was different from the way Alexis made me feel. I think this probably meant that I didn't like her that way and probably got all up in arms about the kiss because it wasn't something I fully complied to. So that's it the feelings are nothing they're just something I thought I had.

"So when should we come to your house for the sleepover?" Grace asks which snaps me out of my thoughts. "O-Oh...uh...five-thirty I g-guess," I respond and Grace nods.

I start thinking about what I'm gonna do when we get out of school. Now I have to prepare for a sleepover that I wasn't prepared for. We were already going to have a girls sleepover at Kelcie's house on Sunday but Jon thought it was cute to spring a new sleepover on me today so now I have to prepare for it. I know I'll need snacks which we already have. I'm glad we do because if we didn't my mom would go crazy and buy as much stuff as she can. I don't want her to freak out and go broke for me. So I'll have to get out the snacks and make sure that my fat ass brothers don't eat everything. I should probably get my mom to make cookies and I could probably make cookies with her so we can spend time together before I leave.

I should put out the wrestling ring with my dad so I can put on a match for my friends. I need to pick out a movie for us to watch that everyone will like. I should bring out my makeup and nail polish so we can give each other makeovers. I have to get all the pillows and blankets too. I have to plan out a lot of things for the sleepover. But then also Kelcie said that she wanted to go to Hot Topic. After what happened today I don't know if I wanna go with her or if she even wants to go with me but I guess we can go if she wants to. If she doesn't I might just go shopping with Grace.

My friends are all fully immersed in chatter about all the fun things they'll do over the summer and I can't help but feel guilty. This was gonna be our summer but I was ruining it by leaving to go follow my dreams. I know that my friends will tell me I'm not in the wrong and I know I'm not in the wrong but I feel kind of selfish for ruining their summer plans. I didn't also think about the consequences it could have on my friendships with them. I'm losing more time to bond with them. We've all only known each other for only a year and our bond was becoming so strong and my leaving might just break it.

I shouldn't feel this way about it and I know that feeling this way is stupid but I just can't stop myself from thinking this way. I need to try to get these thoughts out of my head and focus on my bigger task. Telling my friends that I'm leaving.

I've known for a while and I only just told my parents a couple of weeks ago but now I have to face my fears and tell them before it's too late. They deserve to know because they've planned so many fun things for our summer only for me to be going. And how will this affect my relationship with Isaiah? Will he be mad? Will he understand? Will he break up with me? If he can resist being with actual girls his age he probably won't break up with me because I'm moving away.

But you know how they say. Long-distance relationships never really work. I pray that it won't happen to us but most likely it will. But what would I do without him? I can't imagine not being with Isaiah. It feels like I've been with him my whole life. I hope he'll be fine with me leaving and will try to make our relationship work. Now, look at me all in my head metaphorically asking a boy to be okay with something of my doing and try to work with it when I might not put my full effort into it. A prime hypocrite I am.

And by the works of time I've spent so much time thinking instead of talking to my friends. I talk about making the most of the time we're gonna have together and spending these last couple days together but here I am not even talking to them. A hypocrite I am indeed. It's not that they didn't notice I wasn't talking they were fully aware of it they just chose to not press the situation. I guess it was good I needed some time to run things through my head.

"What m-movie would you guys w-want to watch at the s-sleep-o-over?" I speak up. Grace gives me one of her faces that says 'that wasn't a smart question' and she responds with, "If we say a movie and then you tell us that you don't have it answering the question would be pretty useless." I bite my lip and silently agree with her.

"Okay, you have a ch-choice between...Dazed and C-Confused...P-Pulp Fiction, Fight C-Club, and...A-American Pie." I can see them already discussing which movie to watch. It was clearly between Dazed and Confused and Pulp Fiction. The girls would probably pick Dazed and Confused because the characters are cute and we like high comedies and I'm not talking about sophistication. The guys also like Dazed and Confused because you know high comedies like Wayne's World are cool but Pulp Fiction is awesome and us girls love seeing John Travolta. They finally come back with their verdict and it's a unanimous decision to watch Pulp Fiction.

I was pretty happy with their decision. I mean I kind of really wanted to watch Dazed and Confused but I'm more than cool with watching Pulp Fiction. "Are Kelcie and Angelina coming to the sleepover?" I hear Nick say and I bite my lip and tap my fingers on the table.

That's one thing I didn't really think about. Did I want Kelcie and Angelina there? I mean yeah they were my best friends but they kind of hurt me today especially Kelcie. All I wanted to know is if they still wanted to come.

"If th-they st-still want to come they c-can come," I respond I rest my face in my hands and observe my friends, looking to see if they wanted them to come or not. And just as soon Jon asks my question out loud.

"Do you not want them to come?" Nick looks kind of taken aback that Jon would ask but he quickly recovers and goes back to his easygoing mood. "No, I just wanted to know if they were coming or not." Jon doesn't seem to sense that Nick is lying and I don't have the brainpower to call him out on it so I drop it.

Sami comes over to our table and for a second I'm thinking he's about to say some dumb joke but he's just here to tell us that it's time to go.

"Did you p-pop anything Sami?" I tease and he rolls his eyes.

"That was years ago." He retorts and Mike scoffs. "It was only a year ago." Mike rebuffs.

"My point exactly, you guys are always stuck in the past."

"It's better than being stuck in the house for a whole summer." Nick jokes everyone chuckles and Sami leaves with a 'whatever' which makes us laugh harder at him. After all our laughter I get up to go find where Kelcie and Angelina are but Grace grabs my jeans to stop me.

"Where are you going?" She asks letting go of my jeans. I pull my jeans up surprised that Grace didn't pull them down to my ass.

"I'm g-going to go get Kel-Kelcie and Angelina." She lets me go off to go find them. I walk past all the trampolines but I can't find either of them. I walk throughout the jump area and don't see any sign of them. I go to the lounge area but they aren't there either. I go back to where my friends are and see that they left to go to the bus and I check at the tables for them. I'm getting a bit aggravated that I don't know where they are and I check the food shack and the arcade for them.

I won't lie I'm a little pissed off that they left us to be with two guys that could never care for them as much as I do. I walk to the entrance area and see no sign of them so I just walk outside to our bus and get on and sit in my seat next to Jon.

"Couldn't find them or they don't want to sit with us?" Grace questions and I sigh and say, "C-Couldn't find 'em." Grace face twitches in slight anger and I swear that's just how I feel. Why would they abandon us like that?

I see Angelina and Justin come on the bus and I stick my head into the aisle. I know Angelina sees me because she looks at me for a good three seconds and then sits with Justin upfront. "Bitch." I hear Maria mutter and I see Grace playfully hit Maria on the arm but she has a smile on her face.

"Maria!" I say in a sing-songy tone but I have a smile on my face while I'm doing it. I'm glad that I have people that share my anger about the situation.

Kelcie and Nathan come on the bus and Kelcie's eyes meet mine instantly. I can feel regret deep from her eyes but she swallows it down and sits next to Nathan. Their seats are adjacent to Angelina and Justin's and I so badly want to tell them to not sit next to them and come and sit with us.

If I was going to do something, if I wanted my best friends I had to make a move cause they wouldn't. Without warning, I get up and leaned against Nathan and Kelcie's seat and in my best ability tried to coax them to come sit with us.

"You guy's ar-aren't sitting with us?" I try to make my voice bigger than it is and focused on properly enunciating my words. I addressed both of them but I looked solely at Kelcie. I noticed that Nathan's lips were pinker than usual. Kelcie's pink plump lips had the lip gloss that she almost always wore rubbed off of it.

"Excuse me." I hear Maurice say and I roll my eyes.

"There isn't a-any seats b-back here go sit the fuck down Maurice." I snap but I only did it because all I wanted to do was have my friends back. I don't know being mean is a default for me. He smacks his lips and goes to find a seat.

Kelcie answers as if this was just some big inconvenience but she knew that I was bothered by her not sitting with us. "Oh, I think we're gonna sit with them today." I wanna argue and stop them before they go too far into this shit but I only give her a small smile and I leave without another word.

I sit in my seat and run my hands over my face and I sigh. After everything we've been through they aren't coming back. My friends say nothing because I'm obviously pissed and when someone's pissed it's advised to not fuck with them and more than ever right now I don't want to be fucked with.

"This is some anime bullshit." I hear Nick grumble and I laugh at his choice of words. "How so?" I reply.

"You know how the main character thinks their friend is gonna stick by their side only for them to like betray them? Well, it just happened to us." He wasn't wrong we got fucked over like some naive anime character.

"Sp-Speaking of anime do you g-guy's want to w-watch N-Neon G-Gen-Genesis Evan-Evangelion?" I have a fond love of anime partly from my grandfather who is from Japan. I feel like he's shaped most of my interests now. He also introduced me to rock and he even gave me his special guitar that had been signed by so many rock stars.

They all nod and I relax into the seat awaiting the long bus ride to start. I'm always left thinking at these moments and here I go doing it again. I am the main character that got betrayed. I don't know if Kelcie and Angelina want to come to the sleepover. I don't know if they even want to be my friend anymore. But there's one sure thing to me. Nathan and Justin were important enough to them that they thought it was worth it to sit near them. This was the thing I wasn't fine with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel pretty satisfied at where I left off. I know I promised so many things for this chapter but I can't help but to in depth describe things. Hope that's not a problem. I don't know why but in my mind nothing's really happened in the story and it might just be because I'm writing about one day. I feel like the sleepover might be less eventful in some parts because like why would you go to a sleepover to start drama. That sounds stupid but there is gonna be drama so look out for that. Next chapter is gonna be them leaving school and her spending time with her parents because I have to establish what type of relationship she has with her parents. Till then stay swaggy.


	11. eight-prank of the century

**_1:33 pm_ **   
**_lauren's pov_ **   
**_———_ **

**I** wake up and my head is resting on Jon's shoulder. His head is on the window and it's at an angle where it kinda looks like he's been decapitated. I look over at my other friends with bleary eyes. I see Grace fully awake looking out of the window. Maria is fast asleep next to her.

"D-Did you even f-fall asleep?" I ask my voice must have been a little too loud because Nick and Mike start stirring.

"Nope. I was going to but I couldn't. Anyway, I would've missed the show." Her voice is chipper for someone who spends all her time telling you why you aren't quite the brightest.

"What show?" Grace bites her top lip to stifle a laugh which only leaves me more confused.

"Well first Maranda got in an argument with DeeDee. All you could hear was 'Bitch, bitch, bitch' it was kind of annoying until DeeDee said that Maranda's mom was on welfare. Everyone that was still up was laughing. They was about to fight but Mr. Mockbee separated them before anything happened. He be ruinin' everything." Grace starts and I laugh at the thought of DeeDee saying that Maranda's mom is on welfare. DeeDee and I weren't exactly friends but we were cool with each other. Maranda was okay but she could have her moments. I didn't think there was anything wrong with being on welfare but if your a kid and other kids find out your parents are on welfare your done if your in an argument. Saying someone is on welfare is the equivalent of calling someone poor.

"And then our favorite couple decided to make out and Maurice saw them and yelled out 'Nathan's got his tongue down Kelcie's throat.' and the whole bus thought it was so funny. And then ugly ass Mockbee told them no PDA and now they all over each other asleep. The sight of them together alone made me want to go to sleep but I've been up." I tense up at the pairing of Nathan and Kelcie but I just bite my tongue not knowing how to feel about Kelcie. How would she want me to feel? Supportive? Even though I can't, even if I wanted to, support their relationship. If she wants this that's okay but she could at least talk to me about it. I just want to make sense of this.

Mike and Nick are up and they look like they're in a scheming mood. "W-What are you guys up to?" I prod, I stretch myself out over the aisle and balance myself on Nick's legs. My heads in my hands and I have a puzzling look on my face.

"Okay, we'll let you in on our plan." Nick starts he looks over me to Jon who's still out cold and he slyly smirks.

"We're gonna leave Jon on the bus. But we're mostly trying to see if they'll drive away with him still on. Are you gonna help us?" I could never pass up an opportunity to prank Jon. As many times as he scares me, he deserves a little prank on him. I shake Nick and Mike's hand.

"When we're getting off the bus and Mockbee tries to come back tell him you got everyone," Nick instructs and I nod. I slump Jon down in the seat so he won't be noticeable and I make sure to do it gently so I don't wake him up. I mean the chances of him waking up are one in a 100 but you still have to take precautions. Everyone starts getting off the bus and we keep our eye on Mockbee. Grace and Maria walk down the aisle and Mockbee starts coming back.

We get up and face Mockbee in the middle of the bus. "We got everyone," I say, I made sure to sound sure of my self and not sound suspicious and I even didn't stutter. I mean even if I stuttered I wouldn't seem suspicious because of my disability but I was proud of myself no less.

We walked off the bus as we would normally but inside we were cracking up. When we got into the building we started busting out laughing. We slapped each other's hands and gave each other pats on the back. Grace and Maria looked at us quizzingly and we looked the other way and laughed.

"Now y'all need to tell me what's so funny and I better be laughing as hard as y'all," Grace says matter-of-factly.

"We left Jon on the bus," Mike responds with a small chuckle but it dissipates after he looks at Grace's plain face. She doesn't look impressed at all. "So that was the joke of the year. Y'all was really cackling over that. Thinking y'all put on the prank of the century." Grace reminds me of someone's aunt who's tired of children or a grandma who has too many grandkids to take care of. She always acts like she's tired of the bullshit when she either plays into the bullshit or does the bullshit. She's always quick to attack us when she catches us off guard. She was funny in a serious kind of way.

We walk into Mr. Sledge's room and the first thing I noticed was that Kelcie and Angelina weren't here. They had got in the building before us and we were supposed to go to Mr. Sledge's because we were in his group. It was the last day so we could do anything but still, they could have brought their little boyfriends here if they wanted to be with them.

We sat in our corner. Grace's seat was the first one in the row and Angelina's was behind her but since Angelina wasn't her she sat in her seat and Maria was in Grace's seat. I sit in my seat which was in the corner near the window. The sun seeped through the window and shined on my face.

Nick sits in what was DeeDee's seat and Mike sat in Alexis' seat. Behind Alexis was Maria and behind Maria was Maurice. Maurice was basically the class clown but didn't make a fool of himself. He wasn't the type to say shit to get people to laugh only to be kicked out of class that was what Tayvion, one of the most annoying but funny kids in our school. Maurice always had a response for everything contrary to Tayvion.

One time I got into an argument with Tayvion and said his momma was dead and that his family can't pay for the funeral. All he could respond with was that my momma was dead instead. I know it's kinda cruel to say shit like that but he said my dad left to go get milk and he never coming back and you never say anything about someone's parents when your in an argument so I had to hit him with a painful comeback.

DeeDee was the same way, we were kind of the same when it came to arguing. Go for the kill and don't give a fuck about who gets mad over it. She was chill all the time and never really started drama unless she felt personally provoked. She had a quick tongue that so easily would get her in trouble but she would still say what she wanted. I wanted her confidence. It was something I so badly needed.

Alexis was fun to talk to and hang out with. She wasn't boring at all and would fill the air with consistent laughter. She would always try to keep the silence away by saying stuff like 'Bored as shit.' with a real emphasis on shit and 'It's real awkward.' really loud to the point where your like shut the fuck up. I don't know what it would be like to date her. Probably fun at first but then it would just be too much. I don't think she has the mental capacity to take anything seriously and she wouldn't allow a moment of silence even when it's needed. I don't know but I can't see myself with her because of things like that. But I'm not and I'm fine with that because I have someone who can fulfill me in ways I don't think Alexis can.

But in a weird way, I wanted to know what it would be like for us to be together. I just wanted to know what it would look like, what it would feel like and if I would like being with her. If I actually like her. But I don't and I think up situations in my head to entertain myself. That's all I'm doing. Entertaining myself to a thought that will fly away to never be seen and will only ever be a thought. And that's all I want it to be, a thought. Nothing more, nothing less.

I look around the room and my eyes land on Alexis' beautiful, piercing blue eyes. They've captured me again and I can't seem to move from them. Maybe I should stop looking at her and just talk to her. Yeah, that's all it is. I just have a whim to talk to her. She's sitting with DeeDee and Maurice and I felt like this was a perfect time to talk to her.

I get up and go over to them, it was now or never. "Hey," I said to them and they all said hey back. My nerves kind of went away and I was able to say what I wanted to say better. "Alexis, do you w-wanna go to the l-library on Sunday?" I feel like there's some sort of weight that has been lifted from my shoulders and I feel better after talking to Alexis. DeeDee snarky as hell has to respond.

"You ain't gonna invite us." She jokes and I snicker and rub my nose. "Aren't you g-going to C-Cedar Point?" She smiles and gives me dap. The first rule of black people, always accept a dap. You rude if you don't. "Okay, good looks." Good looks basically means thank you for noticing. Like 'Oh you noticed I got my hair cut, good looks'.

"Uh, yeah, okay I guess," Alexis responds and for some reason this warmness bubbles inside of me. "Cool, cool." I walk back to my desk in a way satisfied over what just happened. I get to hang out with Alexis on Sunday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember when I promised that this chapter would include them leaving school and her hanging out with her parents? 👉👈 Pwease fowwive me. I just stretch things so thin that they can't even fully walk. Next chapter definitely will include them leaving school and might include her hanging out with her parents if I stop being a little bitch.


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